- I’m not a lawyer, nor have I ever been charged with a crime. However, I feel confident in saying that when you’re awaiting trial on one assault charge, you should not be getting involved in fights that will lead to a second assault charge being levied against you. This piece of legal and life wisdom would have been helpful to Penn State football player Chris Baker, who has been charged late Wednesday with felony aggravated assault and several misdemeanors in connection with an Oct. 7 fight at the HUB, a local night spot in State College, Pa. Also charged in connection with the incident is Nittany Lions' linebacker Navorro Bowman. Both he and Baker are charged with aggravated assault, a felony, simple assault, stalking and disorderly conduct, all misdemeanors, and summary harassment. The incident occurred on Oct. 7 at approximately 1:46 a.m. outside of Heritage Hall on the Penn State campus at the HUB. Police were called and predictably, when they arrived they found a large group of people gathered around a few men and heard a lot of screaming and yelling. They found the apparent victim of the attack, his shirt covered in blood, trying to use the shirt to stop the bleeding. He claimed he had been attacked by as many as 15 football players after walking through the area and inadvertently bumping into another man. He said that he felt the tension mounting after the accidental bump and tried to walk outside to get away and diffuse the situation. However, according the to victim’s statement to police, the football players followed him outside and from there, all hell broke loose. Baker alleges that the victim charged at Bowman, instigating the fight. The victim claims he was jumped, and for some reason I tend to believe the victim. Why? Because the person offering a contradicting viewpoint is already awaiting trial on another freaking assault that just happened six months ago, that’s why. Also, a 41-year-old maintenance worker who is cited as a witness in the police report, said he tried to help the victim during the attack, but couldn't get through the crowd surrounding him. The witness said the men were kicking, shoving, striking and punching the victim and throwing things at him. So your story would be more believable, Chris Baker, if you hadn’t already assaulted someone else (allegedly) and weren’t awaiting trial in that case and your story wasn’t contradicted by every witness who wasn’t one of your boys. This is what is typically referred to as a pattern of violent behavior and my man; you’re the one exhibiting that pattern. Not even your road-raging coach, Joe Paterno, and the bad example he set for you by berating and threatening another motorist in an on-campus incident recently can be blamed for your act here. When awaiting trial on an assault charge, priority No. 1 needs to be avoiding any situations where you might commit another crime, especially the very same kind of crime you’ve already been charged with. What you’re showing by repeating your (alleged) mistake is that first, you’re not very smart, and second, you don’t learn when you make a mistake. Oh, and good job of making a mess of things post-fight, because when police arrived on the scene, they found two players -- Baker and Timmons -- still at the HUB, flipping chairs and tables. Timmons was told to leave, and told police he was looking for his cell phone. Right, because who doesn’t wreck a public place by overturning tables and chairs because they can’t find their cell. Nice excuse, my man. You and your boy Baker should not be expecting invitations to join Mensa any time soon. As for you, Baker, Losing your football scholarship and getting kicked out of school might be the best thing for you if that’s the end result of all of this, because clearly college is not a place where you function well, bro.
- Welcome to the party, federal government! The rest of us have openly been calling Bar-roid Bonds a liar for years now, so your decision to indict him for lying to a federal grand jury makes you the latest arrival to what is a very large party. Bar-roid has been indicted by the feds on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice for (allegedly) lying to a grand jury in the government’s investigation into the steroids problem in the United States, specifically BALCO, the lab responsible for providing ‘roids, er, performance enhancing drugs, er, nutritional supplements to athletes in a range of sports. The government has been investigating Bonds for four years and his personal trainer and long-time friend Greg Anderson has spent most of the past two years in jail because he refused to testify before the grand jury investigating Bonds. Everyone assumed, rightly so, that Bonds had promised to take care of Anderson financially, as long as he kept his mouth shut, largely because it seemed the government had no chance of securing an indictment against Bar-roid without Anderson’s testimony. Anderson held up his part of the deal, but now that Bar-roid has been indicted, it remains to be seen whether Anderson will still get paid, er, um, have the loyal support of his friend. Shortly after the indictment came down, Anderson was released from jail, so at least he’s not still rotting in jail for helping to cover up a crime/protect his friend. It’s at moments like this, when the indictment is handed down and part of it reveals that Bonds did in fact fail a steroid test back in 2001, that I recall comments like the following from Bar-roid, discussing whether his career home run record is tainted by the steroid allegations surrounding him: “This record is not tainted at all. At all. Period.” No, Bar-roid, I mean, how could a failed steroid test and a federal indictment taint your record? I’m sure everyone out there agrees with you….ok, someone agrees with you….aww, screw it, no one agrees with you, you lying sack of crap. I look forward to seeing you in an orange prison jumpsuit soon. Just be glad they don’t make you wear hats in prison as part of your uniform, because I don’t think most prisons have a big enough hat to fit your ginormous, basketball-sized dome.
- I would have written about Boy George’s last freak incident a couple of days ago when it came out publicly, but honestly I’ve spent the past two days showering nonstop in an attempt to clean the filth and ickiness off of myself after hearing the news about Boy George’s last freak incident. Look, Man George, I know that culturally there are a lot of differences between life in the United States and how you Brits do things “across the pond,” but I’m pretty sure that chaining a male escort to the wall and basically holding him hostage isn’t acceptable in either culture. So you should really refrain from falsely imprisoning people by (allegedly) chaining male escorts to a wall in your flat as a sex slave. That’s what police allege that Man George did to Auden Carlsen, a 28-year-old Norwegian escort, after the singer invited him back to his home in Shoreditch, east London, to pose for photographs in April. Man George then allegedly produced whips and sex toys and told Karlsen: "Now you'll get what you deserve." Karlsen claimed he escaped after wrenching a hook out of the wall. Previously, the former Culture Club frontman has been arrested for heroin possession and falsely reporting a burglary, but at least those arrests weren’t nearly as perverted as this one. Admittedly Karlsen made a huge error in judgment by agreeing to go back to Man George’s apartment with him, because there isn’t a person alive who doesn’t realize or wouldn’t realize within two seconds of meeting George what a total sick freak job he is. Still, that doesn’t give him license to chain someone to a wall and falsely imprison them. Go back to shooting heroin, Man George, at least then I won't have the disturbing mental images I got when I heard about this incident…..
- Am I the only one who doesn’t really see a problem with what Arizona high school teacher Cristina Mallon did? In cased you missed it, Mallon became a YouTube sensation by performing a cheerleading routine in front of her class and had her act caught on the camera phones of several students in her class. The cheer, which is pretty harmless and involves pom-poms, makes sense in part because in addition to being an English teacher, Mallon is also the cheerleading coach at the Higley Unified School District. Her students seemed to enjoy the cheer, as they can be heard rooting her on throughout the clip. However, the district wasn’t down with her routine and placed her on administrative leave last month when video of the incident surfaced. She has since elected to resign, and again I feel compelled to ask what the big deal is. Unlike some teachers around the country (yes you, Kelsey Peterson), Mallon wasn’t having an affair with any of her underage students. She didn’t get hit with a DUI., she didn’t have a sex tape come out and she didn’t assault a student. Yes, she does look goofy doing a cheerleading routine in front of her class, but so what? There’s no rule against teachers looking goofy, and unless there’s more to this story, i.e. other incidents on her record we don’t know about, I think forcing her out is going waaaay overboard. Have a sense of humor and take that stick out from up you a**, Higley Unified School District…..
- How many times do I have to say it before it sinks in with you celebrities out there? You can get away with most anything in this country if you’re rich and famous (see O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake), but if you try to f’over the government on your taxes, you are going down. Al Capone found it out, Wesley Snipes found it out, Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis found it out, now New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter is about to find it out. State officials in New York say Jeter owes the state back taxes for claiming to live in Florida when his actual residence is New York City. Jeter's agent, Casey Close, has said that his client has had his official residence Tampa, Fla. (a state with no income tax, conveniently), since the mid-1990s, but state officials in New York claim that between 2001 and 2003 Jeter was in fact a resident of the state New York and should have been paying state income tax. If this ends up going in the government’s favor (as it always does in tax evasion cases), it could literally cost Jeter millions of dollars. For the New York portion of his tax-evasion scheme, Jeter has owned an apartment in Trump World Tower in New York City since October 2001. The New York State Division of Taxation and Finance, as part of its assertion of the Jeter’s New York residency, noted that he does have personal items that are "near and dear" in this apartment. Of course, based on his actions here, money is what’s is nearest and dearest to his heart. Judge Timothy J. Alston, the presiding judge in the case, has asked the department for more specifics with respect to its claim that Jeter has "immersed himself in the New York community." Also in a five-page order dated Nov. 7, Alston told the department it must provide Jeter with a more detailed document specifying his "community involvement in jurisdictions other than Florida" and "public statements regarding his desire to be in New York," according to Associated Press. So playing shortstop for the team’s favorite pro sports franchise doesn’t count? Dating MTV vee-jay Vanessa Minillo, a New York resident, and pop tarts like Mariah Carey, and going out to every hot club in New York with these chicks doesn’t count as “immersion in the community”? Would it help if we could prove that Jeter prefers New York-style pizza over Chicago deep-dish style? If you can prove he meets the NYC minimum of flipping off fellow motorists at least five times a day, would that help? Ultimately, Jeter is going to pay up because everyone who tries to stiff the government on their taxes ends up settling up sooner or later in some way, shape or form. Pay your taxes, Jeets, and if you really want to pull off the whole Florida-resident act, ask for a trade to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays or the Marlins. You won't win many games, but at least you won't have to worry about those pesky state income taxes.
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