A Swedish music critic misunderstands rock, I support rioters at all times and Larry Craig is goin' down in flames

- Here’s another story falling under the heading of “Things You Should Have Expected.” A miffed Swedish music critic has drawn the ire of Rolling Stones’ guitarist Keith Richards for snorting the ashes of his deceased father and not asking Richards to do a line with him. No, just kidding…..Richards is actually upset with critic Markus Larsson because Larsson recently gave a poor review of a Stones concert at Ullevi Stadium in the city of Goteborg. Larson described Richards as possibly drunk and looking “a bit confused.” He gave the show a rating of two stars out of a possible five. Upon reading the translation of the poor review, an incensed Richards countered, “Never before have I risen to the bait of a bad review. But this time…..I have to stand up…..for our fans all over Sweden…..to say that you owe them, and us, an apology.” I have to agree with Richards on this point because after all, what do you expect from a Stones concert if not an intoxicated, drugged-up, dazed and confused show? Have you never heard of a little show called the Stones at Altamont? You have these great-but-aging rockers still ingesting copious amount of alcohol and illegal drugs, trying to keep up with a rigorous touring schedule, so yes, they may appear “a bit confused” from time to time. But what’s more rock n’ roll than musicians being so drunk, hung over and/or stoned that they can barely make it on stage? Get off your high horse, M. Larsson, and take a minute to learn what rock is really about.

- Well lookee here, Congress is actually going to take proactive steps toward addressing a real, pressing problem. Let’s all just stop for a moment and allow that startling reality to sink in………………..ok, now that we’ve all had time to process that news, let’s move on. It was announced today that the COMMITTEE NAME HERE will hold hearings next month on the issue of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in professional wrestling. Congress has already investigated Vince McMahon once on the steroid issue, but that was well over a decade ago and the problem has definitely gotten worse in recent years. More and more wrestlers are dying before their 45th birthday, highlighted by the grisly double murder/suicide tragedy involving WWE wrestler Chris Benoit and his family a couple months ago. I guess we finally have our answer of how many people have to die and how many others have to speak out about the rampant use of steroids in pro wrestling before someone will actually do something about it. I don’t know how much action Congress will take, but the mere public spectacle of McMahon and his cronies being dragged before a congressional committee to testify should help. It certainly had an impact on baseball players like Mark “I’m not here to talk about the past” McGwire, Sammy “I forget how to speak English” Sosa and Rafael “I have never taken steroids, period” Palmeiro, all of who had their reputations destroyed by their lying, double-talking performances in front of Congress when baseball’s lax steroid policy was called into question. Professional wrestling may not be a sport in the same way that baseball, basketball, football, etc. are sports, but hopefully these upcoming hearings will help clean up what has become a dangerously dirty business.

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! By now you know that where there’s a riot, I’m there at least in spirit and I’m going to be down with what’s going on 116.4%. My favorite kind of riot, of course, is when rioters get so unruly that the police break out the tear gas, water cannons and clubs to subdue the crowd. That’s exactly what happened yesterday in Santiago, Chile, where thousands of angry demonstrators took to the streets to protest unfair social and economic policies put in place by the government. The daylong protests resulted in 372 arrests and spread from the center of the capital city into several nearby working-class districts. I don’t yet have any confirmation of any looting plundering and overturning/burning of cars (if I find out about any such activities, I’ll let you know), but still a great effort by the Chileans. Any time you can force the police to break out the tear gas, water cannons and clubs, that’s a significant accomplishment. That’s what we in the riot business call the Riot Trifecta. I salute all of my Chilean riot pals especially the 372 of you who were arrested, that shows you are giving an extra level of effort and taking your social disobedience one step further than most.

- Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand. Sen. Larry Craig, D-Id., is under serious fire after his arrest and subsequent guilty plea on charges of lewd conduct in a restroom at the Minneapolis Airport. Following his George Michael act, Craig has “agreed to comply” with a request to step down as the top Republican on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, with a predictably bland, political-speak laden statement from the GOP accompanying the decision. “This is not a decision we take lightly, but we believe this is in the best interest of the Senate until this situation is resolved by the Ethics Committee,” the statement read. Additionally, some leading Republican senators are calling for Craig’s resignation from the Senate, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona. McCain believes that if a senator pleads guilty to a crime, he should resign. I have to disagree with my man J. McCain on this one, because if we get rid of all of the criminals in Congress, there won't be enough felons, er, congressmen, left to run the House or the Senate. I know Craig’s sexual freakery in a public restroom is sick, twisted and disgusting, but I don’t believe that he needs to resign because of it. Would I turn around and walk out of a restroom if I walked in and saw that perv Larry Craig there? Absolutely yes. However, I don’t think that him being a perverted freak makes him unfit to be a senator.

- Who doesn’t think that phoning in a bomb threat is amusing? Oh, that’s right, everyone over the age of 14 thinks it’s absolutely retarded. Well, everyone except the tool who’s been calling large grocery and department stores around the country and threatening to blow up shoppers and employees if they don’t wire large amounts of money to a foreign bank account. Frightened workers have actually wired this ass hat thousands of dollars – and in one case took off their clothes – to appease a mysterious caller who claimed to be watching them but may have actually been thousands of miles away. The FBI and local police are investigating a series of similar threats at more than 15 stores in at least 11 different states in the past week. A big middle-finger salute to this piece of crap, phoning in fake bomb threats to extort money from people. Hey loser, the operators of pyramid schemes think you’re a low life. “Hey, Winn Dixie’s, I’ve planted a bomb in your store and I’ll blow you up unless you take your clothes off and wire me $5,000!” Ah, hilarious, good one, tool. That’s the American entrepreneurial spirit at work. If you need money, just phone in a fake bomb threat to extort money from innocent people. Whoever this idiot is, he’s the one who needs to be blown up.

College presidents should be smarter, Miss Teen S.C. needs a break from all of you and a melancholy happy trails to the founder of C.B.G.B.'s

- Shouldn’t college presidents be a little smart than this? Should they not know that at a major university with a big-time athletic program, there’s going to be a fair amount of rioting and general civil disobedience? Not former Ohio State University president Karen Holbrook, as evidenced by her recent comments about the school she once presided over. Holbrook stated that there was a culture of rioting at OSU and, “Any excuse to riot and have drunken orgies in the streets, they took it.” Wait, you’re telling me that college students love to drink, riot and have sex? Seriously? Damn, that totally wrecks my world view. I thought every single student at every single college and university in America was in school for one reason: education. I figured all of them were there to go to class, study really hard, learn lots of new things and expand their minds academically. I was under the impression that there was no underage drinking to speak of, no use of illegal drugs, no unlawful behavior and no sexual activity of any kind going on at any of these places. Wake up, Holbrook, you just described every major university in America. If your school has a good football or basketball team and they win big games, the students are looking to riot, period. If your school has quarters or semesters that end, when those quarters and semesters end, students are looking to party. What’s next, you’re going to enlighten us with the news that college students also like to sleep in late, eat cheap food and buy the cheapest used textbooks they can find? Stop acting like OSU was some sort of anomaly and pretending to be so horrified at what went on there. You had to know that’s how it would be before you went there, yet you went and took their millions in salary to do a below average job as the university’s president. To crack them now for their “culture of rioting and drunken orgies” is incredibly hypocritical, because from the looks of it you did little to nothing to discourage or eliminate that culture in your time at OSU.

- I’m about to criticize a guy who can buy me and everything I own about 50,000 times over and another guy who could beat me to a bloody pulp in thirty-five seconds or less, but I think I’ll plow ahead anyhow. The latest round of village idiots participating on ABC’s Dancing with the (D-list) Stars was announced Wednesday, with some predictable inclusions among the contestants. First, you have a publicity hungry, attention-starved rich guy, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. I love Cuban because he’s outspoken, he’s rebellious against the stodgy, conservative nature of being an NBA owner and he seems very much like an anti-corporate type guy even though he’s a billionaire. However, appearing on this show definitely lowers my level of respect and admiration for him, because this is the most absurdly stupid reality show on TV right now outside of American Karaoke. Joining Cuban are the aging jock looking to extend his time in the spotlight (boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.) and someone that no one actually knows and cares about but is trying to become a household name (racecar driver Helio Castroneves). Actually, about 85 percent of the people that participate on this monstrosity are individuals that no one really knows or cares about, but props to ABC for going out and getting some obscure driver of a racecar of some kind (I don’t really know or care enough to make the effort to know what circuit this tool drives on) to come on and make a fool of himself doing the cha-cha and foxtrot. One positive in this show returning for another season as opposed to ABC coming up with a new and possibly interesting show to replace it is that I already know this is one hour of TV I don’t have to waste time watching. With a new show, I might have spent one or two episodes watching and trying to decide if it was good or not, but with Dancing with the (D-list) Stars, I already know I don’t give a crap.

- I feel compelled to back track a bit and revisit the mess that my girl Caitlin Upton finds herself in. The Miss Teen South Carolina winner has been mercilessly mocked this week after a rambling, confusing response she gave during the Miss Teen USA pageant when asked why one-fifth of Americans can’t even locate their own country on a map. She referred to “U.S. Americans” and “the Iraq” in her answer, then admitted she simply got confused and rattled by the question. Now, everyone is lining up to take shots at her like she’s the first person ever to publicly misspeak or not make sense. Hey America, your own president rambles, makes no sense and has little or no knowledge of world geography and the names of foreign countries and leaders, so you really can't be that hard on an 18-year-old girl for doing the same. So she’s not a Rhodes scholar or a polished public speaker, so what? And no, I’m not just saying this because she’s incredibly hot (really, really hot), I’m saying it because not everyone has to be incredibly intelligent and well-spoken. It’s all right if some of us fill other roles in the world besides that one. I’d much rather be around people who are not the smartest but a generally good-hearted than people who are smart, well-educated but are also total a-holes. If the worst thing you can say about someone is that they don’t speak well under pressure and aren’t knowledgeable about global affairs, then I’d say that person is someone I’d be glad to call a friend and a fellow U.S. American.

- I always make a concerted effort to stay about from the obituary/people who’ve died topic, mostly because it’s a melancholy and depressing subject. Still, as a huge rock fan and a fan of rock’s history, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the passing of a true music legend, Hilly Kristal. The name might not be familiar to you, but you probably know Kristal’s most famous accomplishment. He was the founder and owner of one of the most famous clubs in the world, C.B.G.B.’s. C.B.G.B.’s is right up there with the Whiskey in L.A. as the places that any band worth anything has played at. It was located on the south end of Manhattan, opened in 1973 and served as the launching point for the careers of legendary artists such as the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television and Sonic Youth. C.B.G.B.’s was ground zero for the punk movement in the ‘70s and gained worldwide notoriety after starting as little more than a dingy, grungy, skid-row bar. Kristal was the driving force behind it all and a major player on the music scene in New York for many years, or at least he was until he was forced to close down his club last October in a dispute over back rent payments with the building’s owner, the Bowery Residents’ Commission. The final show at C.B.’s featured Patti Smith, the legendary singer/poet who was so much a part of the club’s success in its early days. The club’s name (C.B.G.B.’s & O.M.F.U.G. in full) actually stands for “Country, Bluegrass and Blues, and Other Music for Uplifting Gourmandisers), which is a mouthful for sure and belies what the club ended up being all about. Kristal ultimately lost his battle to keep the club open and this week, he lost a long battle with lung cancer. He will be missed, just as true rock fans miss his great club and all of the amazing history it represents.

- In one of the least surprising sports stories of the millennium, Cuba will not be sending a boxing team to the upcoming world championships in Chicago. This decision comes on the heels of an incident at the Pan Am Games in Brazil earlier this summer where two members of the Cuban boxing team went missing, ended up holed up at a Brazilian resort and attempted to defect. The tournament in Chicago is one of three qualifiers for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, so the Cubans do have two more chances to qualify is what is traditionally one of their strongest sports. The true surprise here isn’t that Fidel Castro has elected not to send his team to a tournament in the United States; the real shocker is that he ever allows any of his athletes to leave the country, period. Really, any Cuban athlete who has the chance to set foot outside that absolute hellhole of a country is a flight risk. I’m actually surprised that Castro hasn’t tried to find a way to keep all of his athletes from ever leaving Cuba to compete. Y’know, like having them compete via video conferencing, set up a web cam at the gym and have their opponents do the same wherever they are. Personally, if I’m a Cuban athlete, my top priority is becoming the best at whatever sport gives me the best chance to travel outside the country. Then, the second my plane touches down in another country, I’m making a mad dash to the nearest embassy and asking what paperwork I need to fill out in order to defect.

Why I'm siding with the French, why Rafer Alston is taking a stab in the wrong direction and potential jurors in Miami get a big scare

- Rafer Alston was known as “Skip to My Loo” during his days as a street baller, but after Monday night he may be known as “Slash to My Throat.” The former New York City playground-legend-turned-NBA-player has been charged with felony assault after allegedly slitting another man’s throat in a brawl outside of a Manhattan nightclub Monday night. The playgrounds of New York are where Alston made a name for himself before going on to a moderately successful NBA career that has included stops in Toronto, Miami and Houston, his current team. This is Alston’s second brush with the law in the past month, as he was charged with misdemeanor assault and public intoxication by Houston police last month after he reportedly spit on another man when his car was towed. Overall, it’s good to see that Alston is making good use of his offseason, working on key elements of his game like his stab, er, jab step. I guess it really is true that you can take the guy out of the street, but you can’t ever take the street out of the guy. Rafer, my man, it’s time for you to realize that you’re an NBA player now, not a street baller. You just can’t be rolling the same way that you did back in the day. You have to avoid situations like this or your NBA career is going to be unnecessarily brief.

- No one likes public restrooms. They’re filthy, they’re often poorly maintained and the odors you encounter upon entering them often make you want to throw up. Bearing that in mind, I really have to take issue with Sen. Larry Craig, R-Ida., and his act at the Minneapolis Airport earlier this month. Craig was sitting on the toilet (never a good idea in a public restroom, hovering is much better) and Sgt. Dave Karsnia, a police officer stationed at the airport, was seated in the next stall. According to the police report, Craig leaned down, reached under the stall wall and tapped Karsnia on the foot, which Karsnia said he recognized as “a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct.” Craig then allegedly handed Karsnia a business card identifying himself as a member of the Senate and asked him, “What do you think about that?” I don’t know what Karsnia’s response was, but I know what mine would be. “Hey freak, get the heck away from me right away or you’re going to have me kicking your teeth down your throat.” Having to use an airport restroom is bad enough, you don’t need some 62-year-old, married pervert trying to engage in sexual freakery while you’re going to the bathroom. Craig pleaded guilty to one charge of misdemeanor disorderly conduct as a result of the incident, while a charge of gross (emphasis on gross) misdemeanor interference to privacy was dismissed. The $575 fine Craig was assessed for his crime should be a far lesser price than the ridicule and public scorn he ought to face as word of his perverted, sick fetish leaks out.

- A trial by jury is typically bad because as most people know, juries are typically comprised of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to find a way to get out of jury duty. If you are somehow unable to escape the call to duty, though, you’re probably not too happy when you show up to court. Your life is interrupted and inconvenienced, all so you can hear the facts in a case you don’t care about and a person you also do not care about. Potential jurors in Miami had to deal with something even more disturbing when they showed up for the start of a robbery and aggravated battery case: former Attorney General Janet “The Man” Reno was also a member of the jury pool for the case. I can’t think of anything scarier than being face to face in a showdown with that dude in jury deliberations when a disagreement arises. Do you want to be the one to tell him that he’s wrong and that he needs to change his vote? Fortunately for those who are selected for the jury, the odds the Reno will be selected are slim. Defense attorney Rod Vereen said he didn’t doubt that Reno would be a fair and qualified juror, but doubted that his client would want her on the case. “She hired the prosecutor,” Vereen explained. That’s a good reason to reject her, but so is the fact that I would not want to spend a trial with that dude lurking in the jury box a few feet away on the off chance that he gets angry at some of the testimony and decides to charge the defendant’s table. Use whatever excuse you have to, Vereen, but get Reno off that jury pronto.

- How very French of you, Nicolas Sarkozy. The French president warned Monday that it would be “catastrophic” to resort to using military force in confronting Iran over its suspected nuclear program. “For me, Iran having a nuclear weapon is unacceptable,” Sarkozy said in his first public remarks on the issue. However, Sarkozy went on to say that a military attack on Iran would be the wrong tact and urged that the West take the diplomatic path in resolving the issue. He also said Iran could take the diplomatic path or face further U.N. sanctions, proving once again that if it involves actual conflict of any kind, count the French out. Oh, by the way, I do happen to agree with Sarkozy on this one, what with America’s current plight of our own idiotic leader plunging us headlong into an unnecessary, unjustified, horrible conflict with a Middle East nation on the grounds of its developing nuclear weaponry and others “weapons of mass destruction” that never actually existed. Perhaps if Nicolas Sarkozy was our president, we could have avoided the whole massive-bloodshed dilemma in Iraq and the senseless deaths of thousands of American soldiers. So on second thought, I’m declaring myself an honorary Frenchman for the day and I’ll be enjoying a croissant and some smelly cheese, growing a mustache and wearing a beret while the rest of you go on with your American lives. Viva la France!

Miss Teen South Carolina may be dumb, but she's still hot, Greek has another good episode and Lance Briggs goes brain dead

- I would normally be opposed to any TV show making repeated use of the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen theme, but I’m going to give last night’s episode of Greek a pass. Casey (Spencer Grammer) and best friend Ashleigh (Amber Stevens) were in a fight even though they both describe their relationship as being like that of the identical, waifish and drug-loving (allegedly) Olsen twins. The episode as a whole was good although slightly scattershot, with the main storylines being the quest of Casey and the Zeta Beta Zeta sorority to put on an educational play for a local group of underprivileged students to fulfill their charitable work quota and the plight of Rusty (Jacob Zachar) as he feels pressured to take charge in his relationship with girlfriend Jen K. (seriously, it’s getting old quickly referring to her as Jen K. all the time, I don’t know many people who refer to friends or girlfriends using their last initial) and blurts out the “I love you” bomb in the spur of the moment. Somehow that led to Rusty, Cappie and Calvin (Paul James) heading to a local strip club for the mythical “lunch buffet,” apparently a place Cappie often goes to drown his sorrows. The boys end up in a pinch when their credit cards are rejected and they owe a $275 tab, but it’s Casey to the rescue. The running gag of how many majors Cappie has had and changed to continues to be one of the funnier parts of the show, as every time Rusty needs advice on a different subject, his helpful fraternity president chimes in with surprisingly good input and Rusty realizes, “You used to be a ______________ major.” Last night it was physics, but the gag continues to be funny mostly because all of us know or knew someone who had at least a half-dozen majors in college and seemed to switch them more often than most of us change our socks. A good capper for the show was Dale (Clark Duke), the uber-religious and dorky roommate of Rusty, and his band Darwin Lied rocking out at the end of the Zeta Beta show, much to the amusement of everyone. I enjoyed that part more because it meant I didn’t have to hear Dale spouting his nonstop religious clichés and propaganda, fulfilling every negative stereotype people tend to have about Christians. Oh, one last thing: exactly how plausible is it that when a frat guy, in this case Cappie, is depressed about a girl, he takes out his frustrations by cleaning the frat house? Again, I don’t know any guy who has ever been in a frat who has worked out his pent-up aggression by cleaning. Drinking? Yes. Fighting? Yes. Sleeping? Yes. Playing video games? Yes. But cleaning, not so much. Still, it was an enjoyable episode and it was interesting to see that a TV series could realistically portray the disgustingness of strip club food, yet Pacman Jones continues to sell the story that when he went to an NYC strip club the night before his meeting with Roger Goodell, he only went there to get something to eat, as if food is the reason anyone goes to a strip club, ever. Only a few episodes remain in this season for Greek, so set the TiVo for Mondays at 9 p.m. on ABC Family and get in on a great show.

- You might be selling contrition, Mike Vick, but I’m not buying it. In fact, I’m calling out your alleged remorse and regret as you faced the cameras yesterday as 100% fake. The clip was played about 587 times by ESPN throughout the day, so there was ample opportunity to hear what Vick had to say. He apologized to everyone he could possibly apologize to, except for the dogs he so brutally murdered and those he didn’t get around the murdering. He called his actions immature and said he needs to grow up, but there were key points missing from his monologue. First, Vick never said the words “criminal” or “felon”, both of which are words that describe what he now is. He said he “allowed” things to happen that should have not taken place, clearly intending to paint himself as a bystander in much of the wrongdoing who is kinda sorta guilty because he didn’t stop the activities but also wasn’t an active participant. Vick also maintains that he didn’t really gamble on the dog fights because although he supplied money for the purses, funded the whole operation and lost money when his dogs lost, he didn’t get any money when his dogs won. Oh, ok, this is one of those charitable gambling operations? Y’know, the kind where you put money in and if you lose the bet, you lose your money, but if you win, you don’t take any of the money from winning. I see these all the time, charitable gamblers looking to bestow financial gain on others rather than selfishly grabbing their own winnings. This is a ginormous spin job by Vick and his legal team, trying to avoid being pinned with the scarlet “G” that will land him in major hot water with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Problem is, Goodell isn’t buying it, because he has a brain just like most of us and he’s smart enough to realize that the facts clearly indicate that Vick gambled, period. For everyone that’s buying Mike Vick’s apology and saying this is the first step in his road to redemption, my advice is to wait. Wait until he serves his time in prison and wait until he’s been out of prison and stayed away from dogfighting and other criminal activity for at least as long as the five or six years he was reportedly involved with dogfighting. Come talk to me then and you might have an argument that Vick really is a changed man and that he’s sorry for what he did, not just sorry that he got caught.

- I don’t know for sure what Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs was doing when he held out of training camp in a contract dispute, but I can tell you for certain one thing he wasn’t doing, namely applying for membership to Mensa. Briggs went full-on knucklehead early Monday morning after crashing his car into a lamppost, light standard or other roadside object, electing to flee the scene, call a tow truck and initially report his car as being stolen. According to Briggs, he called the police back ten minutes later and admitted that his $350,000 Lamborghini was not actually stolen but rather that he had wrecked it himself. The road he crashed on is the primary road that one would take from the downtown entertainment district in Chicago to the upscale suburban neighborhoods where Briggs lives. Reading between the lines, a cynical person might think that Briggs was out late, clubbing and drinking, then crashed his car on the way home while he was intoxicated and fled the scene to avoid having to deal with the police. Again, that’s just speculation, but what’s not speculative is that police have charged Briggs with leaving the scene of an accident, failure to properly report an accident and improper lane usage. Of course, those charges are a lot better than getting hit with a D.U.I., so if a person did what Briggs did because he or she was intoxicated, you could say that they made smart business decision, so to speak. Some misdemeanor traffic charges are a lot easier to deal with than a D.U.I., that’s for sure. Whether that’s what Briggs did, we may never know for sure, but what other reason could a person have for fleeing the scene of a one-car accident like that? It looks awfully suspicious, but here’s hoping that Briggs is telling the truth and he simply panicked when the accident happened.

- We’re all dealt our cards in life. Some of us are intelligent, well-educated individuals who make our way through life on our wits. Others among us are given great musical or artistic skills and make use of those to build our lives. A third category is the people with tremendous athletic ability who create a name for themselves by using those skills to succeed in sports. Then there are those of us like Miss Teen South Carolina, who are extremely deficient in the intelligence category but have the gift of being incredibly hot and not much else. Caitlin Upton, Miss Teen South Carolina, a girl who went almost totally brain dead when asked why one-fifth of Americans can’t locate their own country on a map. “I personally believe U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation that don’t have maps. I believe our education, such as, in South Africa and Iraq, everywhere, such as, I believe they should have our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or South Africa and Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future.” When asked on NBC’s Today show what happened to her, Upton replied that she was “just overwhelmed” by the question and barely heard it. She just “drew a blank” and “misunderstood.” Yeah, because that’s such a difficult question, with all of its one parts and incredibly simple premise. Then again, who really cares? She’s a beauty pageant contestant, after all, she’s not looking to run for president (although yes, she is still smarter than our current one). Besides, have you seen this girl? She’s freaking hot, and let’s be honest, that’s more than enough to get by in life. Pamela Anderson has done just fine by being hot and not much else, as have Carmen Electra, the late Anna Nicole Smith in her career and many, many others. She may not be able to understand simple questions, formulate coherent responses to those questions or speak the English language at anything higher than a first-grade level, but I honestly don’t give a crap. Just throw up a few pictures of this chick on your screen and you’ll understand why it doesn’t matter that she knows nothing about Iraq and has the same IQ as a bag of pork rinds.

Political b*tch-fighting, Alberto goes adios and a totally unwatchable chick flick (astonishing, I know)

- I loves me some good ol’ fashioned political party bitch fighting, and that’s exactly what we have right now in a skirmish between the Democratic National Committee and the state of Florida. The DNC has delivered a resounding political bitch slap to the state of Florida by stripping the state of its delegates at next year’s national convention, where the party’s presidential candidate will be selected. The penalty was assessed because the Republican-controlled state legislature scheduled Florida’s primary elections for Jan. 29, a week (gasp!) earlier than the Feb. 5 date allowed by Democratic party rules. The move will render the Florida primaries meaningless unless a compromise can be reached in the next few weeks. The DNC views it as a warning shot to other states that might try to move their primaries up on the calendar and thus boost their importance in the election process. Caught in the middle of this are Florida Democrats, who I’m sure are thrilled to know that their role in selecting their party’s next presidential candidate (please, please don’t let it be Sen. Hank Clinton) has been rendered null and void. This is why I love politics – the bitch-fighting, pettiness, small-mindedness, total selfishness and self-absorption, with just the right amount of massive ego sprinkled in.



- Our long-running national nightmare is over America, and I am happy to declare to you that no, the terrorists have NOT won! No, I’m not referring to the cancellation and total annihilation of the entire American Karaoke franchise, although you can be sure I won't rest until that dream becomes a reality and we’re rid of Ryan Seacrest and his man-blouses once and for all. And no, I’m not talking about the New York Yankees missing baseball’s playoffs entirely, although that’s becoming more and more likely with each passing day and each successive blowout loss by the boys in pinstripes (nice 16-0 loss to Detroit, Yankees, you still suck). No, I’m referring to the fact that today the dumbest, most clueless, inept, dishonest and ass-hatted attorney general in U.S. history has tendered his resignation. May I be the first of millions (AND MILLIONS!) to raise a single middle finger in salute of your bloody, cataclysmic and abysmal tenure, Alberto Gonzales. As much as I will miss your clumsy, awkward, double-talking soliloquies before congressional committees, I am happy to see you go. Someone else will now have to orchestrate the politically motivated firings, strictly performance-based personnel decisions and dismissals of eight attorneys general for investigating too many Republicans and not enough Democrats, then lie about if and pass the buck repeatedly when Congress starts asking questions. For validation of Gonzales’ resignation and its rightness, you need look no further than his former leader W. W. steadfastly maintained that Gonzales should not resign, which in my book certifies without a doubt that Alberto needed to go. Anything W. says is good is really bad, anything he says is wrong is actually right, just live by that principle and you’ll be just fine. Adios, Alberto, you won't be missed.



- Let me help you out with a dilemma you may be facing, all of you guys out there. Scarlett Johansson has a new movie out, The Nanny Diaries, and your wife, fiancée or girlfriend is wanting to go see what is a quintessential chick flick. You’re waffling because as much as you hate chick flicks, you think that going to stare at Scarlett and her amazing body for two hours might make it a bit more palatable. However, despite that fact and the fact that there is occasionally a chick flick that is a decent movie (i.e. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, a very good movie), this is not a movie you should suffer through under any circumstances. Johansson is a recent college grad who takes a job as a nanny for a wealthy New York City family because she can’t land anything better, much to the dismay of her mother, who thought she would make a rapid ascent in the world of Wall Street. The movie tries to be cute, funny and endearing, but it succeeds in none of those things. You’ll be checking your watch less than half an hour in, wondering how long this can possibly stretch on. Unless you’ve done something really, really, really bad and you owe your significan’t other a massive debt that flowers, candy and lots and lots of jewelry can’t settle, do everything you can to avoid going to see this movie, you’ll thank me for it.



- The Michael Vick dogfighting case has drastically increased awareness of and scrutiny for the issue of animal cruelty in America, so it’s not at all surprising that a nosy neighbor called the police in Phoenix and reported that pit bulls at the home of rapper DMX were not being given sufficient food or water. Equally unsurprising is that when the police arrived at DMX’s home, the possible mistreatment of animals wasn’t the biggest legal issue they found. That’s because in searching the property, deputies found half a pound of illegal narcotics. Yes, that’s right, in the home of a major rap star, police found drugs. That may take some of you by surprise, because let’s face it, with the pristine, squeaky clean, law-abiding image that rappers tend to cultivate, you would never expect any of them to be in possession of such unsavory illegal substances. Nothing gives a guy more street cred that being a law-abiding, responsible citizen who never, ever goes anywhere near illegal drugs, right? This is just a wild guess on my part, but if you went and searched the homes of the top twenty rappers and hip hoppers right now, my guess is that you’d find plenty of illegal narcotics in nineteen of those homes at a minimum. Feed and water your dogs, DMX, and next time you won't have the problem of the cops poking around your home and finding your stash of blow, X or whatever it is you had on hand.


- So you still don’t believe that all of our American military efforts should be focused on Afghanistan and not Iraq? Well, I guess you haven’t heard the great news that for the second consecutive year, Afghanistan has produced record levels of opium. That tally includes a whopping 45 percent increase in production in the Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold that clearly is fulfilling its role in the country’s economy. So if we’ve invested just a portion of our military power in Afghanistan and we’ve already seen such promising results, why not go all-in? Let’s put all of our resources into this battle, that way we can take serious steps toward solving the true global crisis that would be posed by a major opium shortage. A major shortage of narcotics is something I don’t think any of us wants to see happen, so let’s all make sure we do everything we can to ensure that the country which produces the most opium of any nation in the world has another record-setting year in 2008.

A new album from Rilo Kiley, another bad "War" and Manuel Noriega goes to France

- It appears FOX’s stellar record with reality TV shows continues unblemished, what with the network’s latest reality offering, Anchorwoman, debuting last Wednesday and promptly having the plug pulled on the show less than 24 hours later. The show took Lauren Jones, a former Miss New York winner and Miss America contestant, and dropped her at a Tyler, Texas TV station as a host of the station’s evening news. The idea, I think, was that hilarity would ensue when this ditzy blond beauty queen flubbed and gaffed her way through her new role, but the ratings and reaction for the show were so terrible that FOX’s execs killed it almost immediately. The show garnered a mere 2.7 million viewers, but those 2.7 million intelligence-deprived, friendless losers can catch the remaining six episodes of the show at Fox.com or at the show’s MySpace page. Just goes to show that you can take a swimsuit model and stick her on a TV screen, but if she’s fully clothed and attempting to do something other than show off her great rack, most viewers aren’t interested. Well, having a terrible show with a lame premise doesn’t help either, but you can’t deny that more men would have been interested if Jones had done her broadcasts in a thong and revealing bikini top. Considering that the show aired on FOX, I’m actually surprised the network didn’t take that route. But hey, there’s always next time…………

- God bless the U.S.A., where we don’t actually administer justice and punishment to wealthy, famous people, but we do allow their extradition to other countries that do want to administer such justice. On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge William Hoeveler rejected arguments by lawyers for former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and ruled that the despotic politician could be extradited to France, where he faces charges that he laundered millions of dollars in drug proceeds through French banks. Noriega’s lawyers contended that his status as a U.S. prisoner negated the French request under the rules of the Geneva Convention. They pressed for his return to Panama, but instead it’s a one-way ticket for Manuel to the country where surrender isn’t just an option, it’s the only option and where showers are always optional. Best of luck with the Frenchies, M.

- “Sorry I tried to kidnap and possibly kill you, no hard feelings.” Those are the sentiments expressed in court by Lisa Marie Nowak, the former astro-nut about to go on trial for her attempt to kidnap a romantic rival in a bizarre astronaut love triangle. Nowak apologized to Colleen Shipman for “frightening you in any way” in their first direct communication of any kind since the attempted kidnapping. Not sure that such a weak apology makes up for driving halfway across the country with a cache of weapons and while wearing an adult diaper, but nice try Nowak. The apology came during a five-hour hearing in an Orlando courtroom in which Nowak’s attorneys argued for the removal of a court-ordered monitoring anklet she’s been sporting. I say we keep that anklet on, what with Nowak being a total whack job and all. Even Shipman admitted that that she’s still afraid of Nowak to this day. Bill Oefelein, the object of Nowak’s affections, has remained quiet the past few months, but if he’s smart, he already has a restraining order in place against Nowak. With crazy chicks like her, you can never be too careful.

- Indie rockers Rilo Kiley have been quiet for a while now, so their new album is flying under the radar despite being a very good listen. Under the Blacklight is 37 minutes of music that is a substantial departure from what most long-time fans of the band are expecting. The album has a decidedly seedy vibe throughout, as evidenced by the single The Moneymaker, released via the Internet earlier this summer. The accompanying video for the song features several veterans of the adult film industry discussing their lives and experiences in the business. There are heavier beats, slick guitar riffs and a generally stylized, polished feel throughout the album as well. Lead singer Jenny Lewis is all over the map vocally and on most songs, her vocals stand out decisively, mostly in a good way. There is at least one “traditional-sounding” Rilo Kiley song, The Angels Hung Around. Overall, it’s good to see one of the great indie bands of recent years back together following a hiatus in which Lewis guested on a song with The Postal Service and recorded her own solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat (a PETA favorite, no doubt). Under the Blacklight definitely deserves a slot in your iPod’s memory, even if it isn’t how you think Rilo Kiley “ought to” sound.

- George Clinton and the P. Funk Orchestra had it right, as it turns out. Music lovers undoubtedly remember Clinton growling on the band’s hit ‘70s song, “WAR! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!” That description could not encapsulate the new Jet Li movie War any better. If you’ve ever seen any one of Li’s previous films, then essentially you’ve already seen War. It’s the same as every other movie the guy has ever made, filled with complicated fight scenes, bloody shootouts, women taking their clothes off and mundane dialogue. Adding Jason Statham to the mix doesn’t help much either, as he’s essentially a British version of Jet Li. Statham is an F.B.I agent on the trail of a rogue assassin (actually named Rogue, imagine that) played by Li, who is in turn smack-dab in the middle of a war between the Yakuza (the Japanese mob) and the Triads (the Chinese international mob). Yes, this movie is so clichéd that it’s actually a mob flick, complete with every bad martial arts and mob movie cliché imaginable. I’ll spare you the details of the ending, most of which you could already guess anyhow, and you can spare yourself $10 and avoid wasting two hours of your time by not seeing this yawner.

Danny Tanner gone bad, Nebraska baseball players doing the same and MLB screws fans with a late, late night

- Adios, Danny Tanner. Most of us know Bob Saget as dorky, cleanliness and order-obsessed dad Danny Tanner on the 1990s sitcom Full House. Back then, Saget teamed with Uncle Jesse (John Stamos) and Uncle Joey (Dave Coulier), neither of whom were actual uncles to his three daughters, to form a wacky, zany family that lived in a cool row house in San Francisco. Some of you may also know Saget as a former host of one of the worst hours of teleivision known to mankind, America’s Funniest Home Videos, where in viewers would submit near carbon-copies of the same contrived, lame “accidental comedy” moments that theoretically took place unscripted at their homes, family gatherings, etc. You know, stuff like dads getting blasted in the package with a wiffle ball bat during a game in the backyard, the family cat falling into the toilet, someone getting their pants accidentally ripped off at a wedding reception, that sort of thing. Well, those warm and fuzzy family moments are no longer Saget’s thing, as evidenced by his new HBO comedy special That Ain’t Right. I won't ruin Saget’s act for you in case you’re unfortunate enough to want to watch it, but let’s just say he mixes in nearly every expletive in the book, jokes about farm animals, anecdotes about his ex-wife and former girlfriends and much, much more. “I guess I have some concerns because what I would hate is for parents to put their kids down in front of the television and go, ‘We’re going to go out to dinner tonight. You just watch the dad from Full House,” Saget mused. “They’re going to come home and the poor kid’s head is going to be spinning around.” Right, Bob-O, because that’s what most parents do, go out to dinner and leave their kids home with instructions to watch comedy specials on HBO, where anything goes. Are they going to drop them down in front of a UFC fight as well, or maybe a flick on Skinemax? I know you were only a TV dad, but you have to know a little more about parenting than that, don’t you? Maybe not…………

- There are going to be a lot of very tired Detroit Tigers fans for the rest of the weekend, something you can blame Major League Baseball and the Tigers themselves for. Friday night’s game between the Tigers and Yankees was the start of a four-game series featuring two teams right at the top of the heap in the battle for playoff spots in the American League. The Tigers trail the Indians by 2.5 games in the AL Central and are right behind the Yankees in the wild card race. The Yanks are a little worse off, trailing Seattle by three games in the wild card race and Boston by 5.5 games in the AL East race. It makes sense that even on a night when persistent, heavy rains fall on the field, you want to do everything you can to get the game in. If you have to wait one hour, two hours or even two and a half hours to play the game, you do it. However, when that wait stretches to four hours and a game that was scheduled to begin at 7:05 p.m. doesn’t start until 11:00 p.m., that’s too much. Asking fans to sit around the ballpark for four hours in the rain and then watch a game when most of them are ready to fall asleep is over the top, and the teams should have realized this, as should the umpires and Major League Baseball. Compounding the problem is the fact that the game went into extra innings and didn’t end until the 11th inning, when Tigers shortstop Carlos Guillen hit a three-run home run for a 9-6 Detroit win. The winning run crossed the plate at freaking 3:30 in the morning, greeted more by relief than jubilation by the small number of fans still in attendance. So what were the powers that be to do rather than playing the game so late into the night? Well, seeing as this was the first of a four-game series, there were not one, not two, but three days left to play a doubleheader. I know players hate having two games in one day, but you’re major leaguers, guys, suck it up. You make millions to play a kid’s game, and it wouldn’t have been that tough to play a doubleheader rather than stick it to the fans with an uber-late game. Zero points for playing it out into the wee hours of the morning, next time figure out a better alternative.

- Queen was never the roughest, toughest, grittiest rock n’ roll band. They were known more for their flamboyance and pageantry than a rough-and-tumble, brawling attitude, with lead singer Freddie Mercury being the most colorful and flamboyant of the bunch. My point is that Queen didn’t really subscribe to the hard rock lifestyle and stereotypes, so it’s not surprising that 16 years after the band’s definitive end due to Mercury’s death from AIDS, Queen is still doing things in very anti-rock n’ roll fashion. Guitarist Brian May has finally completed his doctorate in astrophysics at London’s Imperial College, some thirty years after dropping out to pursue his music career. May’s thesis, Radical Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, was approved by the school and the 48,000-word monstrosity was apparently successful in proving that planets and dust clouds in our solar system do indeed orbit in the same direction. Also, Radical Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud sounds like a great album name, so bonus points for that. But it’s very un-rock n’ roll to be a doctor of astrophysics, because let’s face it, groupies don’t line up to get nailed by a rocker because of his academic qualifications. The Beatles weren’t a worldwide phenomenon because they were a learned, bookish group. The Rolling Stones and Aerosmith don’t owe years of success to the academic degrees they’ve earned. Rock n’ roll is about dropping out of school, touring the country in a crappy van, busting your a** to earn a record contract and ingesting copious amounts of illegal substances in the process. It’s playing in dingy, poorly lit clubs and traveling to remote cities and towns to play for small crowds, staying in grimy motels and drinking cheap beer. It’s not supposed to be about doctorates in astrophysics, at least I didn’t think so. Even so, congrats to May for sticking with it and earning his degree, I hope now he can finally making something of himself…..

- This is a new one when it comes to college athletes cheating and breaking the rules. Normally student-athletes cheat in classes, get busted for underage drinking, steal laptops, get into bar brawls, etc., but three University of Nebraska baseball players took a different angle. Instead of stealing someone else’s credit card and using them to charge massive amounts of gear (as two University of Iowa football players did recently), Andy Gerch, Jeff Lanning and Craig Corriston decided to take some bats from the baseball team’s equipment stash and trade them in at a local store for store credit. Gerch has been suspended for the first 12 games of next season, while Lanning and Corriston will each miss the first six games. Look guys, I know you don’t have a whole lot of extra cash and you want to be able to buy stuff, but you can’t just sneak some gear out of the locker room and pawn it off at a local store for some credit. First, what kind of store takes bats it didn’t sell and gives you store credit for turning them in? Second, don’t you think the coaches and equipment manager might notice when a large number of bats go missing? They’re going to be able to figure out that you were one of the few people with access to them, so they might start asking questions. Signing up for a credit card you can’t pay off and charging hundreds of dollars on it might actually be a better idea. You are college baseball players, so pretty much no one on campus knows who you are or cares, thus you might be able to live this down without much trouble. That being said, you all need to be better criminals from here on out or your plans after college are going to include orange jumpsuits and leg irons.

- Travis Henry is approaching Calvin Murphy territory, and that’s actually not a good thing. Murphy is an NBA legend and one of the better players in the league’s storied history, but nowadays, most people know him for having about 13 different kids with nine different women. Henry is a running back in his first season with the Denver Broncos, and a report is now making the rounds that his prolific procreation skills have resulted in his fathering nine kids with nine different women in four different states. His previous stops have included the Buffalo Bills at the beginning of his career and a short, one-year stint with the Tennessee Titans, plus his college career at the University of Tennessee. He’s been productive at all of those stops, and he’s also been a pretty good football player. He’s rushed for more than 1,000 yards several times in his career, but clearly his best skills lie off the field, not on it. However, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that having those nine kids by nine women in four states wasn’t something T-Henry was shooting for. Assuming that’s the case, how exactly do you make that same mistake nine different times over the course of several years? Do you not grasp the basic biological principles by which pregnancy and conception take place? Are you not aware of scientific advances like condoms and birth control pills? Can you not control yourself enough to avoid knocking up nine different women in a few short years? My man, I know you’re an NFL player and you make crazy jack, but that money isn’t going to go very far when you’re having to make child-support payments to enough kids to form your own T. Henry baseball team. Should you choose to continue getting after it with every woman that you come within five feet of, you have a few options if you don’t want to hit the double-digit mark in illegitimate children: 1) wear protection, 2) make sure your partner is using birth-control pills, 3) have a vasectomy. Any of those three options should work, or you can always go the truly safe route and just not sex up every woman you meet. As always, I’m here to help, so I hope this has been beneficial to you……….

Steven Segal's bogus lawsuit, more academic troubles for South Carolina football and why I'm thankful to Japanese Little League players

- In one of the worst lawsuits ever levied, Steven Segal is suing the FBI for ruining his movie career. He claims that he’s not getting the roles he wants because of a false FBI investigation of him, but I’m not sure how Segal filed this lawsuit with a straight face. Has he ever watched any of the movies he’s made? Can he not see his wooden, lifeless acting, robotic dialogue and general lack of ability? Does he not realize that he’s just made the same crappy action movie over and over, and that no one wants him in another movie because every single film he makes bombs out in spectacular fashion? Quit living in denial, Segal, just admit that you are in the running along with Keanu Reeves and Pauly Shore for the worst actor of all-time and let’s move on.

- Props to the Little League World Series teams from Japan and Chinese Taipei for doing all sports fans a favor on Thursday. These two teams staged an exciting, back-and-forth 10-inning marathon game that Japan ultimately won. That we got to witness this game was but a small, insignificant part of the equation. The bigger story was that because the game went on for nearly four hours, ESPN2 viewers were not subjected to watching the abomination that is WNBA basketball. A WNBA game featuring one team no one cares about against another team no one cares about was supposed to begin at 7 p.m., but because the baseball game went over we instead got to see that game while missing out on the inept, eye-offending train wreck that is WNBA basketball. Thanks for that, Little Leaguers, you guys rock.

- Don’t forget, TV fans, that Prison Break returns from its summer hiatus next Monday, 8 p.m. When we last saw Michael Scofield and crew, Michael was locked up in some weird, dark, dirty Panamanian detention center where Brad Bellick and Scofield’s nemesis, Alex Mahone, was also taken. The facility, known as S.O.N.A., looked like far from a typical prison and some guys in lab coats in some remote American lab were discussing Scofield’s arrival at the detention center when the season ended. Also, T-Bag was stranded in a different Panamanian jail, charged with murder, and Lincoln Burroughs (Michael’s brother) and Michael’s girlfriend, Sarah Tancredi, were in Panama on the run. A lot is up in the air and there are tons of unknowns in play as Season Three begins, so I’m pumped to tune in and see where this is headed. While we’re on TV, I’ll also remind you that Greek continues its first season at 9 p.m. Monday, with Rusty making the big plunge and telling girlfriend Jen K. the three words guys so fear saying: “I love you.” That the response is, “Thank you,” is funny, just as it was funny on The O.C. a few years back when Ryan Atwood responded to Marissa (Mischa Barton) declaring her love with the same reply of “Thank you.” So you can tune in for Prison Break at 8 o’clock and then flip over to ABC Family for Greek once PB ends and it’ll be a great evening of TV to kick off the week.

- Academic troubles seem to be a way of life for the football team at the University of South Carolina. Last month, coach Steve Spurrier lamented the university’s strict admission standards that were causing him to miss out on prized recruits because while they met NCAA standards, they didn’t meet the university’s higher standards. Spurrier said he would not continue to coach at a place where he had recruits that he had told were in at USC then have their applications for admission rejected by the school. Then this week, starting quarterback Blake Mitchell and two other players were suspended for the season opener this year because they had too many absences in summer school. Why these guys didn’t just have a friend sign them in on the attendance sheet I don’t know, but for their stupidity to engage in this most basic of college class-ditching traditions they deserve to be suspended for a game. Way to crack the whip, though, Spurrier, seeing at every major program schedules a patsy for its season opener so it can start off with a sure win. It’s always entertaining with the ol’ ball coach, though, that’s for sure. Take solace in the fact that these guys were just skipping class and didn’t get arrested, USC, because clearly things could be a lot worse.

Arm wrestling turns ugly, the CW turns uglier and a certain drug maker is ugliest of all

- Personally my feeling is that if you’re such a ginormous loser to the point that you cant find a single from or acquaintance willing to arm wrestle with you, you deserve a broken arm. The Japanese manufacturer of a mechanical arm-wrestling machine apparently don’t feel the same way, because the company is recalling all Arm Spirit machines after three customers suffered broken arms from using the product. The Arm Spirit has ten levels of difficulty, beginning w. a Chihuahua, progressing up to French maid and drunken martial arts master, with professional wrestler the highest level. No word on whether the cause of the problem with the Arm Spirit machines was a late decision to make the professional wrestler level a “Steroid-fueled WWE wrestler” level, but I suspect that may be the true root of the problem.

- The executives and decision-makers at the CW are inept. That much we already knew, but now these tools are just being lazy. With the introduction of Online Nation, a new show comprised entirely of clips created and submitted by viewers/visitors to the network’s website, the CW has hit a new low. Theoretically the concept is a viewer-generated show that will draw in viewers because they have a stake in the content of the show. Viewing it through a more cynical prism, though, it looks more to me like the execs at the CW were too lazy to fill that one last open spot on their fall schedule and went with the alternative that necessitated the least amount of effort on their part. Well, with that cadre of tools together making a decision, I suppose it is possible that they figured nothing that some random drunk or stoned viewer with a video camera might send in could be any worse than the uber-crappy show they’d come up with instead, so what difference would it really make? Either way, kudos to the CW for their continued, universal dedication to flushing their network right down the toilet. It’s truly a sight to behold……….

- Here’s what’s not OK, makers of Viagra: You taking a famous song by Elvis and turning it into a commercial jingle wherein a bunch of old guys sit around some bar with their instruments to form some sort of jam band singing Viva Viagra. The Dead Kennedys can do a cover of Viva Las Vegas; that’s perfectly acceptable. You taking that same song and using it to build some creepy, nasty, discomfiting commercial where old guys sit around and sing about a little blue pill that helps them with their malfunctioning cranks is not acceptable. It’s weird, it’s disgusting and the FCC should fine you $15 million or more for this egregious offense against humanity. I actually don’t have a problem with your company or product in general, but I do have a big problem with your nasty commercials. But hey, I’m sure Viagra is already hard at work coming up with an even more revolting commercial to run during the Super Bowl, so we need to act now before this gets any worse.

- Well this should be verrry helpful in dispelling that “ugly American” stereotype that Europeans are so fond of. Bill Murray, a man who is supposedly a comedic genius even though I can only think of two decent, mildly funny movies he’s ever been in (What About Bob? and Caddyshack), was pulled over earlier this week by police in Stockholm, Sweden for drunken driving…….on a golf cart. Stockholm police spotted Murray puttering through the downtown area in the cart and pulled him over. He then went ugly American, citing U.S. law and refusing to take a breath test when police smelled alcohol on his person The Swedes then went with a blood test, the results of which will be available in two weeks. Murray actually signed a document admitting to driving under the influence and allowing a guilty plea to be entered on his behalf if the case does eventually go to court. The 56-year-old actor had been at a celebrity golf tournament outside of Stockholm, which explains the golf cart part of the story – actually, no it doesn’t. How do you get so toasted that you decide that driving a golf cart through the streets of a major international city is a good idea. Clean it up, Carl Spackler, just because you’ve made a lot of mediocre movies and been paid far too much to do so does not mean you can traverse the globe acting like a ginormous ass hat. Next time, call a designated caddie…….

- Memo to authorities in London: when a dude is willing to snort the ashes of his dead father, he’s probably not going to have much respect for your anti-smoking laws. Nevertheless, police in the city issued a warning to the O2 Arena, where the Rolling Stones were playing a concert, because Keith Richards and Ron Wood were spotted with lit cigarettes during the concert. Smoking is banned in enclosed public spaces in England under legislation that went into affect on July 1. Fines of up to $5,000 can be levied against companies and venues that violate the law, although I’m sure that the Stones have an extra few thousand lying around that they could give to the arena to offset the cost of the fine. I do have to salute Mick, Keith and the boys for giving the finger to the establishment and blatantly disobeying the law, although I suspect they either didn’t know about the law or were too stoned to care. Regardless, rebellion is the spirit of rock n’ roll, so good job on that one guys.

When idiots defend idiots, a bad day for Venezuelans and what happens when you mix beer and bears

- Michael Vick defenders, you might want to just stop talking for a while, maybe sit this one out. Those still trying to argue that Vick is a) innocent, b) a victim of circumstance and/or prejudice, c) only pleading guilty b/c his co-defendants rolled on him and he was backed into a corner are both incredibly ignorant and incredibly myopic. That applies to everyone defending Vick, but it goes double for other professional athletes who have blatantly and repeatedly shoved their feet in their mouths trying to take up for Vick. Back before Vick was indicted, it was Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis making the statement that people needed to get off Vick’s case because those were Mike Vick’s dogs and he could do whatever he wanted with them on his property. As bad of a take as that was, New York Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury’s views on Vick’s case this week were far, far worse. Marbury tried to make the case that Vick is a victim here, a victim of circumstance and someone who just “fell” into the dogfighting mess he is now in. “Marbury, on tour promoting his line of sports apparel, told Capital News 9: “We don’t say anything about people who shoot deer and shoot other animals, you know what I mean. From what I hear, dogfighting is a sport. It’s just behind closed doors. And I think it’s tough that we build Michael Vick up and then we break him down.” Marbury called Vick “a good human being” who “fell into a bad situation.” Wrong, Steph, just wrong. For one thing, the reason dogfighting takes place behind closed doors is because it’s illegal, not a sport. The more you try to make the case for Mike Vick, the worse you make the situation. Because there is no argument to be made for Vick’s actions in funding, founding and operating a dogfighting ring and the absolute lack of character he displayed in lying to Roger Goodell, Arthur Blank and anyone else who asked him if he was involved in dogfighting, those trying to make such an argument look very foolish. When someone admits to a crime and pleads guilty, you making the case that they are innocent doesn’t work. When no less than seven witnesses and multiple pieces of physical evidence place a person at a place where dogs were forced to fight, were tortured and murdered if they didn’t fight and where gambling on those fights took place, your argument that they just “fell” into it doesn’t work. And for the umpteenth freaking time, why can’t athletes refrain from butchering the English language? It doesn’t benefit Vick’s case much when you eloquently proclaim that him fighting dogs is the same thing as people hunting “deers.” It’s deer, you tool, no “s” on the end. The plural of deer is deer, Steph. Besides, what an awful analogy. Dogfighting is not the same as hunting; it’s not even the same as cockfighting. Hunting does not pit one deer against another in a barbaric deer octagon. Nor have I seen any seeing-eye chickens or deer, bomb-sniffing deer, avalanche-rescue chickens or deer visiting sick children in the hospital to brighten their day. Like it or not, in America dogs are a different animal (pun intended). They are domesticated animals and pets, and people get angry when you force them to fight to the death and murder them if they refuse to fight. Whether you all are defending Vick because of race or just to be contrarian, you’re just flat-out wrong and you need to shut your mouths.

- Some things just don’t mix well with beer. Extreme heights with steep ledges or rooftops, operating a vehicle, pills…….these are just a few examples. Another very good example of something that just does not mix well with beer is the bear cage at a zoo. For evidence of this, look no further than the recent Beer Fest at the Belgrade Zoo in Belgrade, Serbia. An unidentified 23-year-old Serbian man apparently had a beer or nine annd somehow found his way into the bear cage. The bear, clearly feeling a bit territorial and also very hungry, proceeded to kill this lush by eating him to death, with a zookeeper left to find the man’s half-eaten remains the next morning. I have to wonder whether the bear simply got full halfway through or just lost interest, because you’d think he’d finish his meal. Speaking of finishing a job, nice work on the security front, Belgrade Zoo. Did it not occur to you that holding a beer fest at your zoo might necessitate extra security personnel? After all, you know you’re going to have intoxicated people and deadly animals in the same place. It stands to reason that you’d want to have a few extra security guards around to make sure that drunk people don’t wander into the bear cage, the lion cage, etc. Oh, and how about making sure that you lock and guard the bear cage securely, that might help too. On the plus side, assuming this guy didn’t have children, at least we can all be thankful that he wont be around any longer to pollute the gene pool.

- Speaking of drunk people doing stupid things…..the Princeton Review has published its annual list of the top party schools in America and to the surprise of exactly no one, West Virginia University tops the list. Coming in second is the University of Mississippi, followed by the University of Texas, the University of Florida and the University of Georgia. I’m sure that all of these schools are very proud of their accomplishment, no matter how much their respective administrations deny it and insist that they run and orderly institution that in no way encourages any type of revelry. Equally happy with their place on a list buy much less clear on the details of what they did last night or last week are students at the colleges and universities that ranked at the top of the “reefer madness” list. Topping this listing of pot-loving schools is Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, followed by Bard College, the University of Vermont, the University of California-Santa Cruz and Lewis & Clark College in Oregon. Making the top 10 in both lists, showing nice versatility when it comes to partying, is the Ohio University. On the other end of the spectrum are “stone-cold sober” (i.e. boring) schools like Brigham Young, Wheaton (Ill.) College, Aquinas College and Grove City (Pa.). Kudos to the Princeton Review, by the way, for “discovering” that religious schools like Brigham Young and Grove City don’t rate well when it comes to partying, that’s groundbreaking research right there. Props to all of the schools that ranked high on the first two lists, and for those that didn’t, you need to burn a lot more couches (and blunts) and mix in more keg stands in the coming year. It’s interesting to note that almost all of the top party schools are located in the South. The western half of the country really needs to step up, because otherwise all of the cool kids are going to start transferring to southern schools. Well, the Pacific Northwest is still a great place for those who love smoking tree, so there’s always that……… - It’s time for the “What Team is Anne Heche Playing For” Watch, and judging from this latest development, it appears that right now, Ms. Heche is swinging from……the heterosexual side of the plate. Heche and her Men in Trees co-star James Tupper are now living together, with real life mirroring their TV lives. Both recently split from marriages to be together, with Heche going through a nasty split with ex-hubby Coley Laffoon. Tupper is taking the right approach for being with a sexual-preference switch-hitter like Heche, though. “Ask me in a year,” he replied when asked where the relationship is headed. Good answer, J., because in a year, you and Heche both might be in loving, healthy and committed relationships….with other women.

- Sucks to be you, Venezuelans. On Tuesday, the nation’s legislature approved a series of reforms that would allow the country’s despotic, dictatorial, bat-sh*t-crazy president, one Hugo Chavez, to govern for decades to come. Chavez had pressed for the reforms and the legislature, ruled by his political allies, quickly acceded to his demands. Well, if nothing else this should at least keep the political scene in the Western Hemisphere interesting for the foreseeable future, because there’s no telling what this crazy mo-fo will say and do. If we really want to spice things up, though, let’s give Chavez a few nukes to play around with, that will make life really interesting.

College football arrests, last night's episode of Greek and why America is really in danger

- Dear God, we’re in trouble. The greatest threat to America isn’t the terrorists, it isn’t hostile foreign powers with nuclear weapons…..it’s freaking Ryan Seacrest. Already the man-blouse wearing, tip-frosting, teeth-bleaching metrosexual, effeminate tool who hosts American Karaoke has weaseled his way into being the “host” of the Super Bowl broadcast because FOX has the rights to the game, and now he’s going to be hosting the Emmy ceremony as well. The chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Dick Askin, says he expects Seacrest to pull in younger viewers to the awards show, which I agree with if you assume that young people don’t have IQ’s above 45. Ironically, I think the real “dick” in this situation isn’t Askin, but rather his choice for the host of his show…….but I digress. Folks, we need to band together and keep R. Seacrest from taking over any more of our TV programming, because if he gets his way and hosts every meaningless, self-congratulatory awards show and televised karaoke contest on TV, the terrorists will truly have won……….

- Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is a busy man. After securing a small role as a “distinguished gentleman” in next year’s new Batman film, The Dark Knight, Leahy issued a bold proclamation of his intentions to hold members of the W. administration responsible for their refusal to turn over subpoenaed information to Congress. “When the Senate comes back in session, I’ll bring it up before the committee,” Leahy proclaimed. Leahy is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and on June 27 the committee subpoenaed the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents pertaining to the National Security Agency’s justification for the W.’s illegal (allegedly) wiretapping program. In what has become common practice for W. and his posse, they have trampled all over the Constitution and refused to comply with perfectly reasonable requests because they don’t want anyone to discover how much illegal, unethical crap they’re really up to…..not until they’re several years removed from being in office and have gone deep under cover.

- Jimmy Clausen is going in the wrong direction in a hurry even thought he’s yet to take a single snap in a game for the Notre Dame football team. Already struggling with his arm strength while recovering from surgery earlier this year, the highly touted freshman quarterback is now running afoul of the law in South Bend as well. The 19-year-old Clausen was cited by South Bend police for driving a 23-year-old friend to a local liquor store to buy several bottles of vodka, none of which Clausen intended to drink, I’m sure. In the state of Indiana, it’s illegal for an underage individual to drive someone of legal drinking age to a liquor store to buy alcohol. You can drive them there just to browse, but the second they buy anything, it becomes illegal. I doubt Clausen even knew this law existed, but he sure does now. It’s not a major offense and the discipline he receives for it should be very minor, but Jimmy, this is not the way you want to start your college career. Reportedly, you don’t even have enough arm strength right now to throw the ball more than 15 yards, so any run-in with the cops is something you’re going to want to avoid. Maybe when you become a Heisman Trophy contender, you’ll start getting the star treatment around town, but not quite yet. On the bright side, at least you got popped for a misdemeanor and not for soliciting sex from an undercover cop posing as a hooker like your teammate Darrell Hand did earlier this summer.

- Fortunately for Clausen, his infraction was the least in what turned out to be a trio of arrests involving football players from Indiana and two other nearby states. At the University of Iowa, leading receiver Dominique Douglas was suspended from the team along with another player, Anthony Bowman, after their arrest on charges of unauthorized use of a credit card. Douglas and Bowman allegedly charged more than $2,000 worth of merchandise on stolen credit cards belonging to two people. Clearly these are not two of the smarter players on the UI squad, because if they were they would know that when a credit card is stolen, it’s fairly easy to find out when and where it was used and to figure out who used it. Nice try though, fellas, hope that shopping spree was worth potentially ruining your football careers and being convicted of a crime. Not to be outdone, two University of West Virginia football players have been arrested and charged with transferring and receiving stolen property. James Thomas and Ellis Lankster allegedly thieved someone else’s computer, although I’m sure they had a good excuse for their actions. Maybe they needed to do some research or write a paper for one of their summer classes and their own computer was on the fritz. It happens, all right? So perhaps this is all just a big misunderstanding. By that, of course, I mean that all of these players misunderstood what happens when you break the law and do so in a way that makes your crime incredibly easy to solve. Yes guys, you do get arrested, isn’t that amazing? Ah, the wail of police sirens and the scent of freshly signed arrest warrants wafting across campuses nationwide……that’s how you know college football season is finally here.

- Another great episode of Greek on ABC Family last night, continuing to prove my point that if you’re missing this show, you’re missing out. The two major themes of last night’s episode were love and cheating (academic, not romantic). Casey (Spencer Grammer) continued to find herself in the middle of a love triangle with current boyfriend Evan and former flame Cappie, a situation complicated by Evan “lavaliere-ing” her (no, lavaliere-ing isn’t a euphemism for sex), which is some sort of ritual at the fictitious Cyprus Rhodes University (which we found out last week is located in my home state of Ohio, very cool) akin to giving a girl your letterman’s jacket. News of the lavaliere-ing (which is apparently the first step to getting engaged) spurred Cappie to rig the selection process for a class project so he could be paired with Casey and try to win her back. That this storyline led to several recitations of Keanu Reeves lines from his best-known movies (both Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and The Matrix), except with a whole lot more acting ability than Keanu has ever shown. With a few episodes still left in the season, the writers obviously stuck to just dropping hints of a Cappie-Casey reunion and put off the big event for now, electing to stick with Casey and Evan as a couple for now. Our boy Rusty was the one facing the issue of cheating this week. He skipped an “optional” review session for an honors chemistry class and was horrified to learn that the professor had given the class an extra five chapters to learn at the session. In preparing for the midterm, Rusty is tempted to cheat to get by but ultimately doesn’t choose any of the normal “sitcom” paths to resolve the situation (i.e. find some sort of miraculous savant tutor to save him at the last minute, cheating but getting caught, studying really hard and managing to pass on his own, etc.) but instead cheated and got away with it by sneaking special candy bars purchased from a mysterious source and cribbing the formulas on the test from the ingredient lists on the bars, where all of the formulas had been hidden. An ingenious solution for sure, but as clever as that was, the way Rusty’s girlfriend Jen K. reacted to Rusty’s cheating plight was poorly done at best. The girl barely seemed to care that he cheated, first of all. Then, what hot sorority girl happily spends the night at the library with her boyfriend, sitting with him and smiling as he studies the molecular chemistry facts he cheated to get right on his midterm and now as taking the time to learn for real because he feels guilty? On the plus side, it was funny to see Dale, Rusty’s roommate, strike a “re-virginization-for-tutoring” bargain with the teacher’s assistant for the chemistry class, then have to go on a frantic last-minute search for drugs to find the speed his tutor needed to stay awake. All in all, taking unusual paths, making unconventional choices and mixing in a lot of good laughs (including a Latin language duel at Dobler’s, the popular campus bar) made for a great hour of television once again for Greek.

MTV exploits a dead genre, the Army is suffering because of W. and I help out Canada's prime minister

- In a game of legal chicken and with his NFL career potentially hanging in the balance, Michael Vick blinked first. Reports began coming out this afternoon that Vick had accepted a plea deal from federal prosecutors in the dogfighting case against Vick and three co-defendants. Billy Martin, Vick’s attorney, made a statement confirming the plea deal, so it is in fact true. The plea hearing for Vick will be held next Monday, August 27, at which time we’ll learn the terms of the deal. Speculation has placed the time of Vick’s impending prison term at 18-36 months, although the final decision on sentencing is in the hands of the judge in the case. However, you have to figure that Mike Vick will be locked up for 2-3 years and has also has the impending discipline from the NFL, it’s reasonable to say that he won't have a chance to play football again before 2009 or 2010. Bear in mind that having a chance to return to the NFL and finding a team willing to sign him are two different things. The Atlanta Falcons, Vick’s current team, appear poised to cut him at some point, although Commissioner Roger Goodell has asked the team to withhold taking any disciplinary action until the league has its say. But the Falcons will have ample time to cut Vick in the months ahead. Once he’s released from prison at the end of his sentence, Vick is going to be off-the-charts radioactive, and any team that signs him will have to deal with all of the scrutiny, criticism and outrage from animal rights activists and dog lovers who will come out en masse to protest in any city where Vick signs. One interesting question is posed by Vick’s decision to plead guilty, and that question is what happened to the defiant guy who had his attorney read a statement back on July 26 that declared Vick’s intention to take the necessary steps to prove his innocence and fight these wrongful charges against him, thus clearing his good name? How did, “I’m not guilty and I’m going to prove it to you,” turn into, “Ok, I am guilty, what kind of plea deal will you give me?” Did I simply hear Billy Martin wrong when he read Vick’s statement outside that federal courthouse in Richmond, Va.? Was he speaking in some obscure, secret code where not guilty translators into, “Not guilty until me co-defendants roll on me and I’m so screwed that I have to take whatever plea deal the government offers,”? I’m actually angrier now than I would have been if Vick had just kept his mouth shut initially and not tried to lie to us all for as long as possible before caving in when he saw he couldn’t beat these charges, and I suspect most people feel the same way. If that figure of 18-36 months is accurate, here’s hoping that Judge Henry Hudson goes high and sticks Vick in the hole for the full 36 months.

- Not exactly an overtly profitable weekend at the box office, although perspective can be skewed when four major blockbuster movies (Ocean’s Thirteen, Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and The Bourne Ultimatum) have come out since the beginning of May. The winner for this weekend is the R-rated comedy Superbad, which brought in $31.2 million, knocking last week’s top earner, Rush Hour 3, out of the top spot (not a tough assignment, I know). However, Superbad cost only $20 million to make, so it’s well on its way to turning a tidy profit for the studio. It is amazing how you can keep production costs low when you’re not paying exorbitant salaries to mediocre lead actors, eh producers of Rush Hour 3? Superbad may not be in the same zip code when it comes to box-office earnings as Bourne Ultimatum, but that’s not the goals the movie is aspiring to anyhow. I’m sure that everyone involved with the project has to be happy with what turned out to be a great opening weekend for a genuinely funny movie.

- Use small words, speak slowly and mix in lots of colorful pictures. That’s my advice to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as he meets with W. this week to re-assert Canadian sovereignty in the oil and natural gas-rich region of the Arctic that has become a zone of contention for multiple global superpowers. The Russians have been the most aggressive in asserting control over the Northwest Passage, which Canada laid claim to in 1973. Well, that’s assuming you consider sending miniature submarines down to the ocean floor to plant pressurized capsules containing your nation’s flag to be aggressive. Why Harper is meeting with W., I don’t know; it’s not as if the United States and Canada alone can make a final decision on this issue. Of course, one study suggested that the region in question could contain as much as one-fourth of the world’s undiscovered supply of natural gas and oil resources, so you know that W. will literally go to war on this. If there’s oil involved, perhaps even if it’s only vegetable oil, that tool is going all in…..

- Speaking of W. being a tool and of war……it looks like boosting the number of U.S. troops in Iraq not only isn’t helping to correct the mess in Iraq, it’s also causing major problems for our military. According to interviews and data analysis conducted by the Associated Press, the Army has exhausted nearly all of its personnel options and faces several undesirable and difficult decisions in the months ahead if W. doesn’t wise up and change course in Iraq. (W. getting smart? Unlikely.) With all 38 of the Army’s combat units deployed, just returning home or already designated for deployment to one of those locations, there are no fresh troops to replace the five extra brigades W. sent to Baghdad earlier this year. Options for solving the dilemma include accelerating the use of national guard units, breaking a promise to keep no soldier in Iraq for more than 15 months or reneging on a promise to give soldiers a full year at home before returning them to combat. Most Army brigades have already completed two or three tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, so maybe it’s time to consider a different option. Yes, I’m going to go all left-wing, liberal, hippie, peacenik on you and suggest that we END THE F’ING WAR IN IRAQ! You’ve said it, I’ve said it, your mechanic has said it, your butcher has said it, Congress has said it, dead people have said it, tribes living in the bushes of Africa who have no idea what America is or that it even exists have said it, so let’s give it a try. Give peace a chance……..

- How many reality shows can bill themselves as portraying “The Real Orange County” before one of them gets it right? MTV must feel like it didn’t quite “git ‘r done” with the three seasons of Laguna Beach the network did (two seasons too many), because MTV is back with Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County, which is basically just Laguna Beach in a different town. Same basic personality types, same kind of wealthy kids engaging in the same typical high school drama, just in a new setting. LB got tired and played after one season, but here’s MTV, trying to squeeze a little more life out of the phenomenon that began in 2003 with The O.C. Problem is, that show fizzled out last year and is mostly forgotten about, yet here’s MTV, trying to capitalize on the phenomenon one more time even though it’s dead and buried. Here’s where I come out on this: I don’t need to know if Chrissy likes Stephen or Kyle or if Alex A. and Alex M. are fighting or if the water polo team will get new uniforms this year. Take this whole genre/concept and bust a cap in it’s a**, MTV, before I go ahead and do it for you.

Oppression in China, a missile launcher-for-sneakers exchange and why the NFL preseason is bogus

- It’s a one-shot, limited-time offer, Arkansans. Due to a legislative faux pas, a law passed by the state legislature allows any person in the state to legally marry, regardless of their age, as long as they have parental consent. A single misplaced “not” in the bill, which was intended to establish 18 as the minimum age to wed but also allow pregnant teens to marry if their parents agreed to it, now allows even toddlers to marry if their parents will allow it. And I know what you’re thinking; I have the exact same fear. This loophole needs to be fixed before Michael Jackson gets wind of it and makes a beeline for the Arkansas state line, I concur. The bill does not affect your ability to marry your sister or cousin as far as I can tell, so stop asking about that, Arkansans. The governor and legislature may have to convene a special session to address the mistake, so those looking to take advantage of it, act now Oh, and I was just kidding about marrying your sister and cousin, Arkansas residents…..well, I was probably/maybe kidding……..

- Remember a few months ago when the city manager of a city in Florida (might have been Key Largo or somewhere thereabouts) wanted a sex-change operation while in office and to keep his/her job after going freak job and becoming a woman with a package? He/she was canned for that charade but apparently he/she/it would have been welcomed with open arms in Brazil. A court in the Rio Grande du Sol state there has ruled that sex-change operations must be offered for free by the country’s public health system. Yes, that’s right, for no charge you can indulge your inner perverted freak and change your gender. This is disturbing on many levels, but it has to be especially bothersome for one particular American, a former Olympian for whom this subject hits close to home. If only Bruce Jenner had been Brazilian and born about 30 years later, he/she could have avoided a whole lot of trouble and hassle………

- Maybe the NFL should just do away with preseason games altogether, because nothing good seems to come from these meaningless exhibition contests. Furthermore, an increasing number of teams aren’t even playing their stars at all in the preseason because the teams are petrified that those players might get injured. The Seattle Seahawks are sitting out starting quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and franchise left tackle Walter Jones. The Baltimore Ravens are doing the same with their star tackle, Jonathan Ogden, who was sporting a nice fishing hat with a chinstrap on the sidelines during last night’s game against the New York Giants. In San Diego, all-everything running back LaDanian Tomlinson not only doesn’t play in preseason, he doesn’t even dress for the games. He’s not hurt or in need of rest, he just doesn’t do preseason football. All the while, you have the majority of preseason games sporting scores and scores of empty seats all around the stadium because fans aren’t down with watching meaningless football games where starters play only a few short series if they even play at all. And oh yeah, the owners in the National Football League insist on charging full price for tickets to these exhibition games. Yes, you pay the same amount for a ticket to a game that doesn’t count as you do for a ducat to a regular-season contest. Why? Hmm…..could it be to pad the wallets and bank accounts of those same greedy owners? Me thinks so. Now the NFL isn’t going to do away with a cash cow like the preseason entirely, but they had better sit down and consider shortening it to three games per team and substantially cutting ticket prices for those games before fans like me take up our pitchforks and torches and storm their lofty castle in a full-out revolt.

- It’s been a decidedly bad week for dissenting and oppositional voices in China. Well, it’s never really a good week for dissenting voices in a repressive Communist state, but this week was one of the worse ones in recent memory. First a cyber dissident was sentenced to four years in prison for “advocating the overthrow of the government” on an opposition website. Chen Shuqing, an outspoken critic of the ruling Communist Party, was convicted on a charge of subversion against the state for his willingness to speak out against the injustices being perpetrated against he and his countrymen by their government. Sure, imprison a guy for being right and having the testicular fortitude to call your oppressive, backwards, ineffective government out for being an oppressive, backwards, ineffective government. Way to go, Communists, just refuse to remove your heads from your asses, you’ll be just fine. Speaking of brutal repression of free speech (a feel good topic in any language or culture), Commie officials in China have banned all state media from reporting on a deadly bridge collapse in the southern Chinese town of Fenghuang. After the bridge collapsed on Friday, media outlets from around the country raced to cover the story but were met with what I’ll call mild resistance. And of course, by mild resistance I mean that Commie officials punched, pushed, abused and finally chased off all of the media members before dropping the ban on all coverage of the bridge collapse. The ban comes courtesy of the Central Propaganda Department, and what else would you expect from agency with that name? I believe their motto is, “To lie, manipulate and distort the facts and attempt to create our own fake truth even when everyone knows the real truth.” This is good because the last thing you want is people knowing what’s going on in their own country, can’t have that happen. Speaking out against a tyrannical, fascist government is bad and so is relaying a tragic, major news story to the people of your country. What better illustration of the awful, oppressive political climate in China to contrast this bridge collapse incident with the thoroughly covered bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Where Americans have seen a lesson and are now using the tragedy as an inspiration to inspect other similar bridges in the United States to verify their structural integrity and hopefully prevent future tragedies, the Commies in China see only an embarrassment that they don’t want people to know about. You suck, Chinese Communists, screw you.

- The cops and community leaders of a city are generally pretty proud of themselves when they come up with the idea of a “Kicks for Guns” sneaker exchange or something similar. They believe they’re making their community’s streets safer by removing guns from those streets and are giving something back to those willing to help out by turning in their guns. However, I don’t think that police in Orlando were expecting someone to walk in with a 4-foot-long surface-to-air missile launcher and ask for size-3 Reebok sneaks for his young daughter. This unidentified man, a candidate for father of the year in my book, claims he found the weapon in a shed he tore down on his property last week. Umm, sure, because who doesn’t have a surface-to-air missile launcher lying around an old shed at their house? Most of us have an unused bike or two, maybe an old lawnmower and some half-used cans of paint….and military-grade weapons. Honestly, I’d say that the cops should have given that guy at least two pairs of kicks for his kid, partly because his weapon is way cooler than any of the other ones turned in for the exchange, but mostly because he went with such a blatant lie and did so with a straight face.

Some gamblers get over, Browns fans get over their indignation and the WWE needs to get its act together

- America has already moved on and forgotten about the Chris Benoit double murder/suicide tragedy for the most part, but this week we received another reminder that professional wrestling has a major problem on its hands. Bryan “Crunch” Adams, 44, a former wrassler who last competed for World Wrestling Entertainment (then the World Wrestling Federation) in 2001, was found dead in his Florida home early this week. Adams’ death, its cause not yet known, continues a disturbing trend of wrestlers and former wrestlers dying before they hit the age of 45. Authorities found no evidence of foul play in Adams’ death, but history tells us that there’s a good chance that the real culprit in this situation has a connection with his years in pro wrestling. It would be reckless and out of line to imply or infer that Adams died because he used steroids or because of problems related to steroid usage, a problem that is so prevalent in the world of professional wrestling. Thus far, I haven’t heard any proof or speculation that Adams did in fact use steroids. It would be wrong, though, not to consider that possibility if for no other reason than the environment Adams was in with the WWF and other places he wrestled. Vince McMahon and his company have already been investigated by Congress for steroids, and those in and around the industry say that there is most definitely still steroid usage in pro wrestling today. In fact, last year nearly a dozen WWE superstars, including Randy Orton and Adam Copeland, who wrestles under the name Edge, were listed as clients on the records of an Internet pharmaceutical company busted by the feds for selling steroids. The fact that Adams died unexpectedly before his 45th birthday is troubling because dozens of active and retired wrestlers have met the same fate in recent years. This should be another impetus for those in power to do something about this problem before it turns into an epidemic.

- Not a great day for OzzFest at a stop this week in Holmdel, N.J. Already plagued by a lackluster lineup of bands and less-than-stellar ticket sales, the annual traveling rock festival led by Ozzy Osbourne saw two fans collapse and die of heart attacks on Thursday. Police believe that both men had ingested substantial amounts of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine at the concert, which could definitely be a lethal mixture. I know that OzzFest fans tend to be 1) hardcore, 2) rough, 3) heavily into illegal substances and 4) not exactly candidates for Mensa membership, but I have to ask how you can get so caught up in things that you say, “Hey, I’m here at a public concert with cops all around, but I’m going to down copious amounts of booze and chase that with not one, but two illegal drugs,”? Normally a sucky lineup including bands like O.A.R., Lamb of God, Hatebreed and Static-X at obscene ticket prices starting at $300 would be the biggest problem, but when dudes start free-basing coke, mixing in weed and beer and then suffering fatal heart attacks, everything else takes second billing. I hate to shoot Ozzy’s cash cow, but maybe it’s time to put OzzFest down. It’s tired and played and now it’s turning deadly.

- Can I ask one more time why a show like The Bachelor even exists? Aside from the fact that it’s a contrived beauty pageant/mating ritual under totally artificial circumstances, inevitably we hear a story like this shortly after the finale of every single season: Bachelor X and surgically-enhanced skank Y have ended their relationship, citing ______________________________ (fill in the blank with predictably lame excuse). Andy Baldwin, the most recent Bachelor, and if I remember right, a military man of some sort (Peaces Corps, Coast Guard, Salvation Army?) has called off his engagement to some woman name Tessa Horst (why even bother to use the Bachelor bimbos’ names, just call them “Skank Desperate for Attention #1, #2, etc.) because “when the fantasy of the show wore off and reality set in, we realized that neither of us was ready to be engaged.” Hang on, when the fantasy wore off and reality set in? But weren’t you on a “reality” show? Am I to understand that there is little or no reality or realness in reality TV? I am shocked and appalled; the very core of my faith in humanity is ruined……

- Cleveland Browns fans….SHOW ME YOUR RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION! LET ME HEAR YOUR CRIES OF RAGE AND CONDEMNATION FOR THAT GREEDY, S.O.B. HOLDOUT BRADY QUINN! GIVE HIM YOUR…...cheers and heartfelt welcome? Yes, it didn’t take long for Browns fans to get off their high horse and give a rousing welcome to the same guy they were busy vilifying just a couple of weeks ago for holding out of the first week and a half of training camp. When Quinn entered tonight’s preseason game, nearly all Browns fans in attendance cheered him lustily. Quinn did little to discourage the adoration, completing 13 of 20 passes for 155 yards and two touchdowns. To be fair, he played against the Lions’ third and fourth-string defense, which included many players who won't survive the first round of roster cuts this week. Still, Quinn’s play was at least better than what we saw from Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson, the two players supposedly battling for the starting quarterback job. If nothing else, the logical conclusion is that we need to see a lot more of Brady Quinn in the final two preseason games to see how he fares against first-team defenses, especially the Denver Broncos next week. Oh, and who told you that fans would forget all about Quinn’s holdout and welcome him with open arms the second he played well? That would be me, I believe……….
- George Clooney said it best in Ocean’s Eleven, if you gamble long enough, the house will eventually take you and you’ll lose big. Casinos aren’t set up for gamblers to come out on top. They aren’t throwing up those huge, new, monstrously expensive casino/hotels in Vegas by allowing gamblers to be more successful than the house. For that reason, it’s nice to see something happen to level the playing field, if only for a short time. A video lottery machine at the Twin Rivers Casino in Providence, R.I. has been giving players credit for twice as much money as they inserted over a two-month span, erroneously paying out more than $450,000 over that time. The machine has now been replaced with one that functions properly, but score one for the common man here. It is amazing, though, that over those two months, not a single gambles reported the malfunctioning machine to casino officials. I mean, who’s more honest and trustworthy than degenerate gamblers? Actually, I’m sure that within a week, word had spread to every active gambler in the greater Providence area about the loose, high-paying video lotto machine at the Twin Rivers Casino. Way to go, gamblers, good to know we can still count on you………