Seven years for justice, less than one to recycle crappy movie ideas......

- It’s not uncommon to hear the criticism that there are no new, fresh ideas for TV shows and movies, and that everything is basically a recycling of what’s worked in the past. There’s truth in that, but when you start getting multiple films with just about the same friggin’ premise and plot and they come within a few years of one another instead of a decade or two, then it’s just offensive. Studio execs are that inept and unoriginal/lazy, that they can't even think of a concept that hasn’t been done already this past year? What really highlighted this trend for me is the new/no-so-new film The Messengers, which operates under the shocking premise that there is supernatural activity that can only be seen by children. Let me rack my mind to see if I’ve heard that recently…..oh yeah, the damn Sixth Sense movie, a film that everyone ran around quoting for weeks. “I see dead people,” became a staple of pop culture thanks to Bruce Willis and child-star-gone-bad-in-the-making Haley Joel Osment, and here we are just a couple years down the road and we have a movie with the exact same freaking premise! Even if you tried just a little bit, you could find something more original than that. Give a room of chimps some typewriters, a few bananas and four hours and they could come up with something more imaginative. Plus, last year, we had The Omen, about a young boy who was himself possessed by the devil, continuing the trend of kids and demonic activity. Is there some sort of demand for this genre that I’m not aware of (other than Michael Jackson, who loves any film featuring young boys)? Otherwise, there are just a lot of very dumb, very lazy, very incompetent writers and studio execs out there with way too much decision-making power when it comes to which movies get made.

- I’ve heard it argued that pro sports franchises should hire a common sense coordinator, an average joe from the outside who would be able to point out seemingly obvious things that get lost to those inside the team because they’re simply too close to the action and too inundated with their own “smarts”, facts and figures to see things that the average fans sees easily. I’m beginning to think that this idea would be doubly good when applied to TV networks. Take the just-canceled CBS show Armed & Famous as a prime example. This programming albatross was canceled after four episodes when it became clear through abysmal ratings that viewers weren't down with seeing E-list “celebrities” like Erik Estrada, Jack Osborne, LaToya Jackson and Wee Man go through training to ostensibly become cops. Had CBS employed a common sense coordinator, that person could have told them that nobody wants to watch people who have no talent, no substantial career success, minimal charisma and are simply angling for their next gig pretending to become members of a police force. Yeah, like a routine traffic stop becomes any more interesting just because Erik Estrada is there to spice things up…..What’s next, you’re going to tell me that a show about Dustin Diamond, James Van Der Beek and Tatyana Ali in training to become airport baggage screeners won't work either? Of course, no one’s heard from Van Der Beek lately, so he may already be working as an airport baggage screener. In fact, that seems really likely, to be honest.

- On again, off again. Barry Bonds’ new contract with the San Francisco Giants is on hold once again, this time because Major League Baseball has some issues with it. These are not major problems and once the team and Bonds dot a few final I’s and cross those semantic T’s, the deal will be done. But shouldn’t the Giants take it as a bit of an omen that there have been so many holdups, fits and starts to this thing. I’m not one to believe in fate and destiny, but perhaps the baseball gods are trying to tell the team something here. Don’t feel obligated to sign this guy just because he’s been with you for a decade plus. Let him break the career home run record elsewhere and become a surly, bitter killjoy with another team. We’re heading for a fun season, with every single person inside baseball and pretty much every fan except Bonds’ diehard Kool Aid drinking sycophants rooting against him breaking Hank Aaron’s record. I wouldn’t be surprised if MLB issues some sort of unwritten, wink-wink directive for teams to intentionally walk Bonds at least 90 percent of the time he comes to the plate. Of course, I’d be on board with this, because nothing would be funnier than seeing Bonds play this season and still not break the record. Go away, Bar-roid, no one wants you around and no one wants you to have that record.

- Celebrities appear to have a very tough time with the concept of paying the bills at storage facilities they rent space at. Late last year, Whitney Houston had a storage facility auctioning off her belongings when she ran up a $200,000 tab of unpaid rent, and now Paris Hilton is pissed because someone bought her personal belongings at a storage facility auction when she failed to pay a $208 rent bill. Memo to celebrities: the “Do you know who I am?” card doesn’t really work when you try to use it with the cops, and it doesn’t work when you try to use it to get around paying your bills. You don’t pay your storage bills, your belongings get auctioned off. Storage bills, you need to pay, just like you need to pay your taxes (yes, you Wesley Snipes and Richard Hatch). A website that I won't give any added notoriety to bought Hilton’s belongings and put them up, then charged people $40 for a month to access the site and view them, as well as exposing photos of the skanky socialite. Hilton has sued the site, which is funny because she’s been seen naked and in extremely compromising situations by pretty much everyone with an internet connection. But let me help you with some math, Paris, since it’s not your specialty. Had you paid the storage bill, you would have shelled out substantially less than whatever you’re paying your attorney per hour for this lawsuit. My guess is that $208 wouldn’t even cover on hour of work for whatever high-priced legal eagle you’ve got on your payroll.

- What you simply cannot ignore or downplay in America is the expediency and swiftness with which justice is administered. When someone’s rights are violated, the judicial system comes down swiftly and sternly…….give or take seven years. That’s how long it’s taken the courts to decide that the rights of about 200 protesters that demonstrated at the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle were violated. A federal jury agreed that the city of Seattle did indeed violate the protesters’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. This, of course, means that the protesters can seek some sort of settlement or recompense from the city, but good luck with that. If it took seven years just to decide that your rights were violated, it’ll take another decade to decide how much compensation that entitles a person to. Ah, the American judicial system, it’s a beautiful thing at times like this.

- Cultural imperialism is one thing America has always been very good at. We’re successful at foisting our culture and customs on the rest of the world, whether they like it or not. McDonald’s, Nike, pro sports….but now we’re infecting another nation with a vice that has the distinct accomplishment of creating financial problems, addictions and crime in many of our nation’s biggest cities: casino gambling. Manchester, England will be the home of a new Vegas-style casino, to be built in the next few years. So I guess England’s senior citizens just couldn’t find a way to spend away their loose change and pension checks, they needed slot machines for that. Brits just can't find a productive way to use their disposable income, maybe. Giving to charity, taking a vacation, traveling or investing just aren't options, so roll in the blackjack tables, roulette wheels and poker tables. The increase in crime that comes whenever a new casino is built should be great too. If I’m a resident of Manchester, this is a verrrrry exciting day…..to move to London or maybe Ireland.

I still hate Brett Favre, but I love the concept of a Jennifer Wilbanks rock opera!

- If you’re slotting the beauty pageants in terms of which one is cooler and more interesting, the Miss America pageant, which just awarded its title to Miss Oklahoma Lauren Nelson, would be a notch or two below Donald Trump’s Miss USA pageant. This is largely because Nelson, an aspiring Broadway star (deduct points for that), has not 1) had slutty photos of herself posted online, 2) been accused of drug and alcohol use, 3) helped corrupt a younger pageant contestant into her clubbing lifestyle, and 4) been seen making out with other chicks. She appears to be pretty squeaky clean, and thus pretty uninteresting. Other factors in this particular pageant losing status and relevance: Mario Lopez hosted, and as much as I love A.C. Slater, if he’s hosting your event and it’s 2007, that doesn’t say good things about you. One of the celebrity judges for the event was Chris Matthews, and if that blowhard is involved, then he is 1) promoting himself somehow, and 2) making the whole thing less enjoyable. Also, the pageant incorporated so-called “reality show tactics” like the aforementioned “celebrity” judges and increased viewer voting. Let’s face it, no one wants to hear about squeaky clean, girl next door types who are genuinely interested in helping children in the context of a beauty pageant. Give us the skanks, the partiers and the morally impaired………..

- I’m not sure when or where the trend of creating operas and rock operas based on recent news and cultural events got started, but I like it. First, it was an opera about the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding skating/assault scandal. You remember it, Harding had some of her goons whack Kerrigan on the knee in a back hallway of an arena because Harding wasn’t good enough to beat out a healthy Kerrigan for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. An opera was written and performed about the saga, and now that idea has been applied to the bug-eyed runaway bridge from Georgia, Jennifer Wilbanks. Who could forget that crazy whack job, with her eyes popping right out of her skull and her zany story about faking an abduction and going across the country on a bus on the eve of her wedding? Well, the Red Clay Theatre & Arts Center in Duluth, Ga., will be the site for a rock opera about the Wilbanks story beginning in October. Any time a society can hold our freaks and mental cases up to continued, increased scrutiny and do so by openly deriding and belittling them on stage, I’m down. I look forward to the Michael Jackson opera about his (alleged) child molestation and house equipped with “adult alarms” and the rock opera about that nutty lady who lived in a tree for a year to save it from being cut down (went by a nature name, something like Butterfly). This is about the only way to add any intrigue to operas, because hearing overweight tenors belt out unfamiliar songs in Italian just isn't doing it for me.

- What are the odds that a California jury administers actual justice to a celebrity accused of a crime? Well, there’s the O.J. trial…..never mind on that….well, there’s the Robert Blake tr-…..never mind on that. Umm, maybe the odds aren't good, I guess, but maybe the trial of singer Brandy for misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter will be different. I would advocate prosecuting her for the awful, atrocious music she’s unleashed on all of us, but I don’t believe there’s a legal precedent for that. In the case of the accident, Brandy rear-ended a Honda sedan with her big, frakkin’ Range Rover, sending the Honda into the center divider, after which it was hit by another car and the driver of the Honda, a 38-year-old waitress from L.A. (i.e. aspiring actress) was killed in the crash. It would be refreshing, for once, to see a rich, famous person actually receive justice for a crime they committed, and I’m sure the family of the victim would appreciate that as well. Of course, it’s SoCal, so there are better odds of a massive snowstorm hitting and the entire region running out of Botox than there are of Brandy actually getting the maximum one-year prison sentence that comes with a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter conviction.

- Will Brett Favre be back with the Green Bay Packers next season? Does anyone give a frak? Why is anyone paying attention to a past-his-prime gunslinging quarterback whose team is mediocre at best? All of the above are questions that need to be answered, and if last off-season is any indication, we’ll have plenty of time to debate each and every one of them. Think back to last year, when Favre ended another subpar regular season with promises to make up his mind on retiring or returning to play. He drug the decision out for an excruciatingly long period of time, seemingly vacillated back and forth, back and forth, screwed the team over because they couldn’t make a lot of roster decisions and moves until they knew his plans, then decided to come back. That meant a second straight year of sitting on the bench for 2005 top draft pick Aaron Rodgers, who has gotten zero chance to develop because he continues to be stuck behind Favre. Well, ol’ Brett came back, he was OK, not stellar, and the team finished a pedestrian 8-8. Now, he promises that he’ll make a quick decision on whether he’ll play in 2007, but how can you possibly believe that promise? He’s a self-promoting media hound who is being incredibly selfish and putting himself way ahead of his team at all times, yet he tries to pull off the “Aw shucks, I’m just a good ‘ol boy who loves playin’ football” routine. I wish he would just retire because he’s no longer relevant, but rather is a circus clown sideshow that has no bearing on the things that truly matter in the NFL. Go away Bret, go home to your farm and ride around on your tractor all day long. You’re no longed needed in the NFL…….

- Somebody should tell would-be thieves in Denmark that the Italian Job, The Score and The Thomas Crowne Affair are just movies, not blueprints for these tools to try to imitate. In downtown Copenhagen, thieves attempting to break into a department store’s jewelry department drove a car through the store’s front window and across the ground floor of the store, but they left empty-handed when they were unsuccessful at running the car into the jewelry counter. A metal security gate prevented them from accessing the jewelry area, so the masked men turned around and drove back out. Brilliant plan, you Evel Knievel wannabes, but next time maybe mix in a little planning and forethought with your daring automobile stunts and then you might have a chance at actually pulling off a successful heist. Questions like, “Is there an iron security gate guarding the jewelry?” would be an excellent starting point.

Rich, white foreigners in Harlem....this should end well

- Been there, seen that before. That’s the initial sentiment when you find out that a former Arkansas governor is running for president. The connections essentially end there, though, because this time the candidate is Republican Mike Huckabee, whose reign in his state’s highest office ended earlier this month after a 10½ year run. Well, to be he honest, there is one more connection between Huckabee and President Bubba Clinton - they both hail from the tiny town of Hope, Arkansas. But Huckabee is 1) a conservative, 2) doesn’t have an angry, feminist, looks-like-a-dude wife who aspires to be President, 3) doesn’t have a freaky predilection for interns and cigars and 4) has yet to be the subject of dozens of SNL skits. Huckabee seems to be outnumbered 50-1 by his Democratic counterparts seeking their party’s nomination, so his odds have to be better if nothing else. He’s also written a book, From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPS to Restoring America's Greatness, which I’m sure he in no way timed up to coincide with his push for the White House. Call me crazy, but I just can't foresee a possible Huckabee tenure in the Oval Office being nearly as interesting as Bubba’s time there.

- ESPN seemed like it had a nice idea with its “Bracket Buster” weekend of college basketball, started several years ago. The weekend pits teams from lesser known, so-called mid-major conferences and pits them against one another in what has become a 51-game slate, 13 of which are televised on the ESPN family of networks. The gist of the event was getting exposure for these teams and putting the spotlight on teams that might otherwise be ignored by the basketball public yet still make significant noise in the NCAA Tournament. However, what Bracket Busters weekend has become is an unnecessary interruption in each team’s league schedule and a guarantee that half of these teams that badly need wins to boost their postseason chances will get a loss and do it in much more visible fashion. These mid-majors are knocking one another off, when what they need is to play and beat more highly esteemed teams. The whole concept has run its cycle and even though it will keep going because ESPN is dogmatic about that type of thing, it really could go away and no one would be all that bummed. The matchups were announced today, by the way, in case you’re interested, just go to ESPN.com’s college basketball page.

- Parents, you no longer have to drag your kids on a vacation to Washington, D.C. in order to bore them with a visit to the Smithsonian. I mean, let’s face it, what kid isn't jazzed about getting forced into a museum on their vacation to look at artifacts and relics instead of going to the beach or to Disney World? Well, thanks to the newly minted Smithsonian Networks LLC, a partnership between the museum and Showtime Networks, Inc., programs like documentaries on Smithsonian artifacts and other highly educational shows will be seen starting in April. So avoid the whining and fighting your kids do on a long road trip or when you fly, don’t bother with paying the price of admission and never have to travel hundreds of miles to be able to hear, “When can we leave?” No, you can now have all of that sheer, unadulterated joy from the comfort of your own living room.

- What better way to brighten the lives of poor, underprivileged kids in Harlem than a visit from rich, out of touch, aristocratic royals from Europe? Prince Charles and his wife Camilla visited a school in Harlem this week, where undoubtedly they had no time identifying with and relating to kids with whom they share neither a culture, socioeconomic status, a lifestyle, hobbies, etc. The kids, I’m sure, were incredibly impressed by two old white people, one of whom has been waiting as next in line for the British throne for decades now and probably won't ever get his shot. And what can allow rich, white foreigners to relate better to Harlem school children than riding your own private train into the city to visit them? On the upside, this is one story about the British monarchy that doesn’t involve me having to hear about Diana, so that’s a tremendous positive.

- See, this is why I avoided wrestling in high school. Well, the gay-looking singlets had a lot to do with it, as did rolling around with other sweaty dudes on those unsanitary mats. But now, a herpes outbreak in Minnesota that has affected ten high school wrestling teams has forced a postponement of those teams’ respective seasons, even their practices, until the problem can be addressed. Well, I don’t think that was on the form the parents signed when their kids went out for wrestling. “Your child will receive wrestling instruction, coaching on techniques and strategies, learn the value of hard work and competition and also contract a nasty STD.” People like to rip on pro wrestling (it’s entertainment, a TV show people, not a sport, which it doesn’t pretend to be), but at least I can't remember hearing about any outbreaks of herpes among Triple H, Mick Foley, John Cena, the Hardy Boyz and The Rock at any point.

- Well, 31 days should take care of an alcohol addiction, no? Ok, so maybe not, but Miss USA, Tara Conner, has spent her month in rehab and she apparently feels she’s good to go. She’s out and is now trying to go the recovering alkie route, with the sympathy, the tears, etc. I’m torn here, because on the one hand, as a human being, you want to see someone overcome what’s a terrible problem that destroys too many lives, but on the other hand, if Conner stops drinking, drugging and getting her freak on, does that mean we’re no longer going to see her out clubbing with other hot pageant contestants, making out with chicks and basically fulfilling the fantasy of every frat dude in every college in America? Can we just eliminate the alcohol and the harder drugs and keep the rest? There has to be some sort of compromise to be struck here, c’mon……

I love technology, not as much as you, you see....but I still love technology, always and forever.........

- If I hadn’t been on my way to or, later in the day in, South Beach, the place I would have most liked to have been was our nation’s capital on Saturday afternoon, joining with thousands of people (including a few celebrities - actual ones, people with talent an/or intelligence, not the D-list losers who appear on loser shows like Dancing with the Stars) protesting the war in Iraq. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were there, and heck, even 20 active-duty military personnel were there to protest the war. So now people who could be among those assigned to go fight in this war think it’s a bad idea. Is there any group or organization anywhere that doesn’t have members actively opposing this debacle? Unless W. and his family plan to be the first few in the 21,500 troop surge that this jackass wants to send to Iraq, he should really reconsider his plan and his refusal to pull our military personnel out of there.

- Remember awhile ago when word got out that from now on, Tom Cruise and his Scientology cohorts would have to read and approve any movie script sent to The Whack-O One’s new wife, Katie Holmes? Well, even though no official explanation was given for Holmes’ rejection of a role in the newest Batman movie, Dark Knight, a sequel to Batman Begins and a prequel to all of those horrible, cartoonishly bad Batman movies of years gone by with Val Kilmer and George Clooney, you can't help but wonder if Cruise and the Scientological whack jobs gave the project a thumbs down. The producers even offered Holmes $2 million to play the role. So either she’s getting some “guidance” on this one, or she’s hung around with Cruise so long that she too is insane, because Batman begins was great and this next installment promises to be good as well.

- Never have I seen a contract so laden with restrictions, out clauses and provisos…..Barry Bonds has finally finalized a new 1-year, $15.8 million contract with the San Francisco Giants to play a subpar, slow left field, hit occasional home runs into the bay in roid-fueled pursuit of baseball’s all-time home run record and to generally be a surly ass in the locker room. The contract comes with some notable qualifications, namely that the team can void the deal if Bar-roid is indicted on perjury charges by the government in its ongoing investigation into Bonds’ grand jury testimony in the steroids case against other entities he’s associated with. Also, the Giants are now banning Bonds’ two personal trainers/drug pushers from the locker room and from being around the team. In years past, he’s had his own entourage at all times and these two stooges even had their own lockers next to Bonds’ in the locker room. Now, Bar-roid will have to sit in his special plush leather chair, ignore his teammates and watch his own personal plasma screen TV in his separate corner of the locker room without his posse flanking him. Looking at the details of this contract, you can't help but feel the love between Bonds and the team and get the sense that they are genuinely ecstatic to have him back…….riiiiight.

- The Billboard music charts are again a giant joke, filled with unlistenable songs containing inane lyrics, so it’s time to go off the charts and talk about an album that’s actually good and exceedingly listenable. Of course, this means it has no chance of making it onto any Billboard charts, but oh well. The new album by the Shins, Wincing the Night Away, is a great follow-up for the bands previous great albums, Chutes Too Narrow and Oh, Inverted World. A couple of the tracks have hints of Morrisey and thus The Smiths, but it’s not a copycat album by any means. The lyrics are unique and catchy, and the first single, “Phantom Limb”, isn't the only good track on the album, which is too often the case when you hear new music from a group. Sea Legs and Sleeping Lessons are two other great tracks in the typical Shins vein, although they’re more than just a continuation or regurgitation of previous sounds from the band. In other words, this is a group that’s growing musically and lyrically but managing to keep many, almost all in fact, of the qualities that made you like them in the first place. And no, don’t discount them just because they’ve been prominently mentioned and featured on a popular, mainstream TV show (The O.C.). Listen and enjoy, peeps…….

- You always want to put technology to good use. Otherwise, things can turn very ugly - just look at the robot in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Well, kids in Milwaukee have been putting technology to good use. They have been using their cell phones to call in reinforcements when they get themselves into a fight, and in a brawl last month at a Milwaukee high school, police and pepper spray were required to bring peace to a fracas. Nearly 20 people ended up involved in the fight when those initially involved called in backup using their cells, and as a result, the city is banning cell phones at all of its high schools. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that when Apple designed its new iPhone, “Call in your crew for a brawl at school” wasn’t one of the features or utilities. Maybe it should be, though; if you can download and listen to tunes, surf the web, send text messages, store contact information and appointments, take pictures, why not add a feature that enables a kid to summon reinforcements for a throwdown in the parking lot? Maybe even set up a program whereby you punch in the specifics of the fight and your phone spits out the numbers of how many friends you’ll need for the fight, which are best suited for a particular battle based on height, weight, fighting experience and weapons expertise….and as always, you can count on kids to understand how best to use any sort of technology. Well done, kids, well done, America’s future is in good hands.

Random thoughts from south beach

- I know real estate is tight and expensive, especially on South Beach, but why the frak is there no free or cheap public parking anywhere? I shouldn’t have to pay $8 to park on the fifth level of a parking deck down the street from the convention center just to go and pick up my runner’s packet and swag at the marathon expo. Nor should I be forced to pay $22 for some valet service to park my car for the night because no hotel on the entire street has their own parking. Not just rich people want to visit South Beach, so maybe work in something more affordable for the average joe.

- Unless you are a) foreign, b) very wealthy or c) both of the above, you feel out of place quickly on South Beach. A whole lot of expensive sports cars and imports driving around, and a whole lot of people not speaking English on the streets are commonalities on the streets. I heard French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and a few other languages bandied about, but rare was the encounter with anyone who spoke English, even rarer if you stipulate that it was English without a broken, stilted accent mixed in.

- Most of the music, television and movie references to South Beach would have you believe it’s one giant party from dusk to dawn, especially at night, and that there are five hot girls per square foot, no matter where you turn. And while there was a lot of partying and excitement going on (not as out of hand as you might expect), there most definitely was a dearth of hot girls, even on the beach. The hot girls just weren't there, definitely not the way a Will Smith video or an episode of CSI: Miami might lead you to expect.

- I found about three semblances of normal, mainstream America (at least the kind you’d find in a Midwestern state, a state in the Northeast or the heartland) on South Beach: exactly one Walgreen’s Pharmacy, one BP station and a Burger King. Maybe there are more hidden somewhere, but it just felt like a place that’s really, really out of touch with the rest of the country.

- That said, there are some good places to eat that aren't ridiculously expensive. You end up paying more for a meal than you would most anywhere near where you live (unless you actually live in Miami or Malibu), but not to the point that you do a double take when you see the prices on the menu. It is, however, funny when you get the check and there’s a message that a 15% gratuity has already been added, but you can feel free to add to, subtract from or altogether eliminate that gratuity. Right, I’m going to double the tip that you automatically assumed I would give on top of the slightly overpriced meal I just paid for.

- I still don’t understand how I didn’t see at least two dozen car accidents and at least as many pedestrians run down by cars. People are constantly streaming across streets and crosswalks and there are always cars on the roads, lots of them. Cars lurch forward, people boldly step in front of them……yet a collision always seems to be avoided. Mix in the scooters and mopeds people like to putter around in and it seems like a formula for traffic catastrophe.

- If the definition of fun is stumbling back to your hotel at 4:50 a.m. drunk and unable to form a coherent, logical sentence, then count me out. I passed a lot of people who fit that description on my way out of the hotel, including one inebriated pair comprised of an overweight, under-clothed woman trying to coax a piggyback ride out of her boyfriend, who was woefully inadequate in terms of lifting power to hoist this chick on his back, especially in his intoxicated state. Plus, I’m sure these people felt really good and really sharp when they awoke in a drunken stupor around noon that same day. Good times.

- People may be rich, but that doesn’t mean they understand geography or the English language. You can call the place you live Star Island, but your 50-foot yacht doesn’t overrule the fact that the place you live is not surrounded on all four sides by water. You have a road from the MacArthur Causeway to your place of residence, people. If you look at a map and find Hawaii, you’ll find that there is no connection to any of those islands from a continental land mass. But who needs to concern themselves with geography and all when you can drink Cristal on your giant boat and hide behind your gated community walls?

- TV sets were being erected along the beach one after another for what seemed like half a mile. ESPN, FOX, NFL Network….beams, scaffolding, artificial turf, backdrops and more were flying around like it was the friggin’ home depot and Pier One combined. Of course, this meant several access points to the beach were blocked off, but the important thing is that our favorite TV and radio personalities be able to avoid walking too far to get from their hotel to the set and then to the beach.

Good news on the heroinfront, the end of "Man Law" and more bad news for smokers

- I recently rapped the NHL All-Star Game for being irrelevant, stupid and uninteresting, so it’s only fair to take a shot at the NBA All-Star Game for being idiotic, but for a very different reason. First off, I understand that these games are exhibitions for the fans, and so for the most part, they should be tailored as such. The fans vote for the players (the starters anyhow), so the guys they most want to see will play the most. Sometimes, though, someone needs to save the fans from themselves. The brain dead buffoons who stuff the ballot boxes at NBA arenas and go online to vote 50 times should not be allowed to elect Yao Ming, a guy who has missed about ¾ of his team’s games this season due to a leg injury and won't even be able to play in the game. Nor should fans be allowed to elect The Big Unwilling to Work Out, Shaq O’Neal, who has missed just as much time as Ming and has just recently come back to action. If the fans aren't smart enough to vote for guys who are healthy and having great years, then they don’t deserve the right to vote. “If the fans want to see a guy, then he should be selected,” apologists will say. Yes…..to a point. If a guy hasn’t played more than half of his team’s games, then he should be ineligible. Hats off to you, stupid NBA fans, I salute you for making this game, already a joke because it is bereft of defense and intensity, an even bigger laughingstock.

- Speaking of the NBA, nice operation you’ve got going there, Commissioner Stern. Your worst franchise, the one that’s a massive abomination and so terrible that the world’s greatest city, a basketball crazed town, is openly rooting for the team to lose so its coach will be fired and those same fans are not attending games at nearly the rate they used to. The New York Knicks are awful, yet they are, according to Forbes, the league’s most valuable team. The Knicks have an estimated value of $592, despite nearly $40 million in operating losses last season. So let me make sure I understand this. A team that was among the worst in the league last year, a team eight games below .500 this year, with a roster full of selfish stars, bloated contracts and no role players to make it successful, is the most valuable? Since when does constant failure, poor management, internal turmoil, selfish employees and a disinterested customer/fan base translate into high value? Enron was run in similarly disastrous fashion, so how come that company didn’t become America’s most valuable and financially solvent? If being awful is making the Knicks valuable, then this season should boost their overall worth to around $1 billion, give or take a few dollars.

- Money usually makes people stop and take notice, most especially when they are losing it. Thus, imposing fines on establishments that fail to enforce Ohio’s new public smoking ban seems like the best (and perhaps only truly effective) option. Many bars, lodges, etc. have been lax in enforcing the ban, voted into effect by Ohio voters this past fall, for fear of losing business and creating tension with patrons. Now, though, a new measure before the state’s General Assembly would provide for fines up to $2,500 per offense for establishments and employees of those establishments that allow smoking, following one warning. I applaud the potential new law, partially because I’m not down with being forced to inhale secondhand smoke and thereby increasing my risk of lung cancer and partially because I enjoy sticking it to smokers and anyone who wants to collaborate with them to keep smoking in public places a reality. Fine them $5,000, fine the smokers too, throw ‘em in jail, they deserve it. If even one person gets lung cancer who never smoked a day in their life and only got cancer because of secondhand smoke, then every smoker ought to be fine and jailed.

- Sadly, the “Man Law” series of Miller Lite commercials is over. The spots, which featured actors Eddie Griffin and Burt Reynolds, pro wrestler Triple-H, former football player Jerome Bettis, former NFL coach Jimmie Johnson and others, just didn’t boost sales enough, so Miller is pulling them. Just goes to show you that the entertainment value of a commercial doesn’t mean squat. A lot of people love the Super Bowl commercials and go gung ho over them (not sure why, I’m there for, oh yeah, the actual game), but do you actually go out and buy a product because of the spots you see during the game? In fact, Miller’s standing in the beer sales rankings actually went downward during the campaign, so we’ve seen the final declaration of Man Law, sadly.

- I won't be reading the new book by Scott Baio, which mostly details his hookups with famous actresses and Hollywood types. I would gladly read it if I felt like it would address some of the real questions I have about Baio, mostly about his ambiguously-gayish relationship with Buddy on Charles in Charge and how a family enlists a twenty-something dude to care for their young daughters, one a teenager. Those are things that need to be addressed, not how many actresses you’ve shacked up with, Scotty.

- Score one for the heroin junkies of the world. And let’s face it, by the way, life is tough enough for heroin addicts, they’re at a real disadvantage, so any small victory is cause for celebration. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has rejected a plan to spray his country’s heroin-producing poppy plants with herbicide, as Colombia has done. Karzai explained that he fears spraying would harm legitimate crops, which is a great defense, I suppose, if you’re looking to cater to the powerful drug trafficking organizations in your country. Sounds like ol’ Hamid isn't going gangbusters to find a way to address the heroin problem, nor does it sound like he considered this measure, advocated by the U.S. especially (us trying to horn in on other countries’ business again, amazing and shocking), too heavily. So take heart, druggies of the world, the leading source of the world’s heroin isn't going to go after your precious poppy plants any time soon.

Visit a wax museum lately? If so, you're a loser, sorry.

- Why does every pro sports league or players association try to sound magnanimous and pioneering when they announce that they are going to have more detailed and thorough drug testing procedures for their respective athletes? The National Football League and its players union have reached an agreement for more potent penalties for those caught using performance-enhancing drugs and also for the addition of blood-booster EPO to the list of substances players will be tested for. Three additional players from each team will be randomly tested for steroids each week, raising the number from seven to 10. This is all well and good, but why should there need to be months of negotiations for the right to test the players? I know there are issues with medical privacy and all, but shouldn’t everyone associated with the sport be welcoming to any additional testing that would ensure players are clean and not putting harmful performance enhancers into their bodies? Does anyone need to go back and look at the life of Lyle Alzado, a man whose career swan-dived, along with his health, because of steroids? He died and suffered terribly because of his steroids usage, which in turn wrecked his body and led to an early demise. So you’ll have to excuse me for not being impressed, NFL, by your new agreement. Should’ve happened a long time ago without needing such prolonged negotiations, it’s best for everyone involved.

- Glad to see that Congress, part of it anyhow, has done what most Americans are now doing; ignoring the pointless, aimless ramblings of our intelligence-deprived Commander in Chief, W. A day after W. implored Congress to give his proposed troop buildup in Iraq a chance to work (hey, didn’t they say the same thing about the Titanic and the Hindenberg?), the Senate Foreign Relations committee shot down the plan by a 12-9 vote. Heck, even though most of the Republicans on the committee voted for the measure, they even spoke out against it beforehand. They then fell in with the party line, but hearing one senator after another make a plea to turn responsibility over to the Iraqis for running their own country was great. W. has pride and he’s stubborn, but how many people have to line up against him before he concedes that he is wrong and that his plan isn't going to work? Your legacy as a tool and a screw up is pretty much sealed, pal, so maybe try to put a nice bow and some wrapping paper on the giant turd known as your presidency by pulling our troops out of Iraq and maybe history won't remember you quite as harshly.

- All those very insightful, very fresh local news reports with a reporter standing outside the post office just before midnight on Tax Day Eve will have to wait this year. Normally, we’re subjected to Anonymous Reporter A standing outside, talking to slackers who’ve waited til the last moment to mail in their taxes, with the normal deadline being April 15. It’s such an interesting, thought-provoking report that most of us reach for the remote to change the channel….“Excuse me, are you just mailing your taxes? Can you tell me why you were waiting to the last minute to pay more money to the government?” This year, though, April 15 is a Sunday and the next day is Emancipation Day (no idea what the hell that is), which is a holiday in Washington, D.C., so the IRS has benevolently declared that everyone can have an extra two days to get their taxes in. Ah, the IRS, a bastion of generosity, empathy and kindness to Joe Taxpayer, what an organization.

- The more I pay attention to this subject, the more disturbed I become. Yet another cruise ship illness has broken out, and honestly, there have been so many the past month I’ve lost count. East Coast, West Coast, it doesn’t matter. Food borne illnesses, viruses - heck, one cruise line even lost a passenger at sea on his honeymoon and paid the guy’s family $2 million to settle. This most recent illness occurred in San Francisco, where hundreds of passengers on a worldwide cruise aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 were strickened with a stomach virus. More than 300 people, 276 passengers and 28 crew members, came down with Norovirus, the Center for Disease Control reported when the ship docked in ‘Frisco. Why exactly does anyone go on a cruise if there seems to be a near-certainty that you’re going to get seriously ill while onboard? Do you need to go to the doctor and get vaccinated for every known disease, then wear a HAZMAT suit all cruise long in order to stay healthy on a cruise? Maybe the Bubble Boy from Seinfeld could go on one and be alright, but personally I’m not going to take a chance with it.

- I said it, and now it’s happening. When you’ve got two weeks between the NFL conference title games and the Super Bowl, you start getting moronic, inane stories like this: first, we learn about a Chicago-area woman who induced labor early so her husband could attend Sunday’s Bears-Saints game. That gem leaked out early this week, now there’s a story about some woman, also a Bears fan, who is attempting to garner tickets for the Super Bowl by allowing some company to use her stomach as advertising space. I doubt it’s a permanent ad, but this pregnant lady is trying to take advantage of her condition by turning herself into a human billboard. Two other tools in Chicago (man, a lot of idiots there) who own a restaurant are trying to trade free meals for life at their eatery for two lower bowl tickets at the big game. Again, when you have waaaay too long between games, people start digging up crap like this to fill the time. And think, we’ve still got 10 days to go, which means more stories like this are on the way. I get it, OK, people really want Super Bowl tickets and are willing to do really dumb stuff to be able to attend the game. But how the hell does any of this have any relevance to the game itself, to what happens on the field and who wins? I don’t need to know about degenerate freaks who will sell their soul and their first born into slavery so they can get a ticket.

- You can't always make generalizations about people based on small parts of their lives, such as where they spend their free time or go for amusement. One notable exception, though, is people who visit wax museums. I can unequivocally say that if you visit a wax museum willingly (assuming you’re not a kid dragged there by his or her parents), then you are a loser. This brings me to the exciting new development at Madame Tussauds New York wax museum, where the wax versions of David Beckham and wife Victoria have arrived. There’s nothing quite like seeing the freaky, inanimate, yet mildly lifelike wax versions of actual living people…..sure. Who in their right mind wants to go stare at artificial recreations of real people in a museum? It’s weird, and now it includes some soccer weenie from Europe who no one in America gives two shakes of a lamb’s tail about. Will the wax recreations show Becks faking an injury, taking a dive after a pretend foul, eating an orange slice, or whatever else soccer players do? But I’m sure this “attraction” will draw scores and scores of very cool, non-loserish people to the museum………

More reasons hockey sucks, elitist white people in the ATL and a new TV show in need of being cancelled

- I don’t give a rat’s ass about professional hockey. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the majority of Americans feel the same way. How can I make that claim? Well, when the NHL went on strike last year (I think, it’s not that important to me, so I don’t devote valuable memory space to it), no one talked much about it or lamented not having NHL hockey around. Now, when the league is back, people who attend games regularly report that the arena was literally half empty when it should be the prime portion of the season. Plus, all NHL games are on Versus, an obscure cable network that probably 95% of American households don’t have. The most recent piece of evidence: I happened across a story on the radio today about the NHL hockey game being held tonight, and I thought, “Really? I had no idea that was going on, not at all.” It’s not a hot topic anywhere on the sports scene, and if your all-star game is on a little-known cable network on a weeknight, that says a lot about your sport’s popularity. Canadians love hockey, and as far as I’m concerned, they can have it. Move all - well, however many NHL teams there are - of the pro hockey to Canada and keep it there, don’t broadcast any games back to the U.S. either. Sit around eating your round bacon with maple syrup, Canada, asking what life is all “aboot” and with your Royal Mounties and their horsies keeping your streets safe, put on your beloved soccer on ice and don’t subject the rest of us to hockey, a sport we don’t give a crap aboot.

- A big, hearty salute for the newest Captain Obvious, David Petraeus, the general charged with carrying out our moronic president’s doomed plan in Iraq! This dip stick made the startling revelation to Congress that they shouldn’t expect quick results in Iraq, a fact that surprised exactly no one. What, General, you mean that a war that’s dragged on for more than two years, cost thousands of troops their lives and continues trying to unite a country of people intent on destroying one another isn't going to be quickly resolved? Really? I just find that shocking. First off, let me qualify your thoughts: 1) going the idiot’s route, staying and fighting a war we shouldn’t be in at all will take a while, yes, but 2) quick results are possible if we pick the correct route and withdraw ALL American troops immediately. Petraeus characterized the situation as “dire”, again eliciting a big fat “No kidding,” from anyone who heard it. All of these administration honks are just repeating the party line, like mindless little drones programmed to say exactly what W. tells them. Why even bother trotting them out before Congress? Just do like Keanu Reeves did in Speed, loop video footage of them over and over, because they’re all just repeating one another anyhow. Then, we can save everyone the time they waste on these hearings and these stooges can worry about actually fixing the problems that they’ve helped to create instead of attending meetings with Congress.

- My prediction for the quickest cancellation of a new TV show this season has just become clear. The new CBS sitcom Rules of Engagement, starring (I use that term loosely) David Spade, Oliver Hudson and Patrick Warburton looks like a four-weeker at best. That’s a safe rule with any show involving David Spade, who is so universally annoying that despising him is the one issue that Americans, Iraqis, North Koreans, Venezuelans and Cubans could all agree on. I feel badly for Warburton, who was funny as David Puddy, Elaine’s sometimes boyfriend on Seinfeld, but my goodwill from that show isn't enough to force me into watching a bad show with a bad pretense and mediocre acting. Great, you have a guy who’s single, one that’s engaged and one that’s married. You’re trying to roll Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond and a dozen other shows into one and patch it in as a midseason replacement show. Here’s a better idea: FOX seems to have abandoned the Man vs. Beast concept, and I’m hankering for some more airplane pulling contests between an elephant and a group of 50 midgets, a hot dog eating contest between a man and a bear and a former Navy seal running an obstacle course against a chimp. Now that’s TV I can get excited about.

- Some very rich people in the greater Los Angeles area are very pissed off right now. They’ve lost their maids, their gardeners, their lawn guys and their butlers thanks to a federal raid that rounded up more than 750 illegal immigrants. Rich people like their servants and they like not paying them much, i.e. hiring illegals who will work for little money. But if the feds insist on gathering up these border crashers and deporting them, there’s going to be trouble. Who’s going to prune the shrubs, fetch the green tea or plant the tulips now? It’s one of the biggest illegal immigrant sweeps in U.S. history, and you can be sure that the White House will use this as fire for their plan to build that wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Honestly, I’m surprised they only found 750 illegals, that has to be about 1% of the illegal immigrants in SoCal. Maybe they ran out of room in the detainment center and will be back for the rest later. Adios, muchachos y muchachas, adios.

- In some of it’s college football ads this past season, ESPN used phrases like, “Undefeated lives here,” or “Passion lives here,” to describe where great qualities of football and its fans can be found. Well, in Atlanta, the motto is, “Segregation and elitism live here.” At least they live in two Atlanta suburbs, almost exclusively white and very, very rich, and residents of these suburbs want to split off from the rest of Fulton County, comprised mostly of poor, largely black metropolitan areas and form their own county, Milton County. What’s not cool about wealthy white people wanting to separate themselves from people they esteem as lesser than and beneath them? Will they also want to erect a wall around their county to keep out the undesirables? Supporters claim it’s a move that will help create a more responsive government in a county whose population is larger than that of six other states. Well, if you have more people than Rhode Island and South Dakota, then it’s all good, never mind. What you people mean is that it will create a government of people who look like you, think like you and are in your high tax bracket. Thus, you can avoid associating with poor people, minorities and anyone you think isn't quite on your socioeconomic level. But you know what, rich, white, Republican WASP’s of Atlanta, if you want your own county, here’s an idea: there’s plenty of available real estate in Antarctica, so you can have all of that you want and for your own county there. Hell, most of the landscape there is just like you, white and frosty, so you’ll feel right at home.

- What a perfect match: Microsoft, a second rate operating system creating company, teaming up with LeBron James, the supposed King of the NBA who can’t even get his team to first place in its own division and past the second round of the playoffs. James will be promoting Microsoft’s new Windows Vista OS, which I am predicting will once again be the third best OS out there, behind Mac-OS 10 and Linux. Microsoft keeps creating substandard operating systems that freeze up, crash, are difficult to navigate and are generally a piece of crap, James continues to be unable to elevate his team to an elite level and past their Eastern Conference compatriots. I love the symmetry here, and I would encourage other second banana companies to follow suit, sign this guy up right away. Maybe Revol Wireless can cook up an ad campaign with James, or perhaps Ford can bring back the Pinto and have LeBron be its official spokesman.

Missing another boring speech by W., plus more reasons to love Heroes

- My new favorite college basketball coach (well second behind the coach at my beloved alma mater, the University of Akron, Keith Dambrot) has to be Bruce Pearl, head coach at the University of Tennessee. Pearl is outspoken, energetic, loud and in your face, just not in the Bob Knight, “I’m an asshole whether you like it or not,” manner. But Pearl is a colorful guy, in more ways than one after he went shirtless and painted his entire upper body orange, just like the other rabid UT fans in the stands at Monday night’s Tennessee-Duke women’s basketball game. He topped off the look with a UT headband and a giant “V” painted on his chest in white, the first letter in a four-man group spelling out “Vols”, the shortened version of UT’s Volunteers nickname. Stick in the mud, stodgy, conservative types are all contorted in indignity at Pearl’s colorful display of school spirit and support for UT women’s hoops, but that kind of thinking is several decades behind the times and just plain wrong. How awesome is it to have a coach, in his 40s, who is willing to go shirtless, paint his chest and act like a nut? I love it, and no, it’s not going to go over poorly with his players or cause trouble with them not respecting his authority. I suspect that they, like me, will think it’s hilarious and fresh. Don’t let the haters deter you from doing this kind of thing, Bruce, college basketball and sports are better for it.

- This definitely snuck up on me…..the State of the Union address was tonight, and damn, I missed it again. That really chafes my hide, let me tell you. A boring, excruciatingly long speech by an ignorant. incompetent blowhard made even longer by sustained applause from sycophants after every single sentence W. utters is must-see TV for me. I just wish I hadn't gotten tangled up in stuff like watching college basketball, watching my favorite shows like Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars, clipping my finger nails, organizing my sock drawer, cleaning the lint trap in the dryer and learning to speak Farsi, because then I might have remembered to watch. But since I forgot, I’ll just have to assume that this speech was like every other one our fearless, mindless leader makes these days; an attempted defense of an indefensible war, feeble, empty gestures aimed at easing tensions with a Democratic-led Congress that hates him and awkward attempts at pronouncing the names of foreign leaders and of any words with more than one syllable. In other words, a rousing good time and the perfect time to break out a new “George W. Bush” drinking game. Y’know, every time W. mispronounces the name of a foreign leader, do a shot of tequila, every time he says we can still win the war in Iraq, do a shot of vodka. Good times all around……….

- I bring you excess criticism of the bad, ugly and awful music, so the occasional slice of quality music is always needed. It’s a bit late if you haven't gotten on board yet, but one of this past year’s better albums still is ridiculously under-noticed, Nightcrawler by Pete Yorn. Yorn, with this third solo effort, has crafted a well-rounded album, mostly rock, but some slower, more melodic tunes, but overall it’s an album that manages to rise above the normal, run of the mill lyrics about chicks, drugs and drinking. That alone is meritorious, but songs like For Us, which has gotten substantial radio play (at least on Sirius) and Alive are just good, straightforward rock with some thought behind it. Unlike some music (Fergie, Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake, Akon, I’m looking at all of you) it doesn’t settle for a dance-able beat, reliance on synthesizers and lyrics that your average third grader could string together. Give it a listen if you like rock at all or think you might, it’s worth your time.

- Very, very exciting to have Heroes back from it’s long winter hiatus. It’s pretty much the only show I watch regularly that has yet to have what I’d call a bad episode this season, and it has enough twists, turns and curveballs thrown into the plot to keep you guessing but yet it’s never complicated enough that you’re totally confused and frustrated. With a cast of characters as big as the show has, the natural assumption would be that most are peripheral and a select few are really interesting, but Heroes does a great job of keeping more than a dozen different characters into the plot and interesting. Masi Oka’s character, Hiro Nakamura, is absolutely hilarious, his comedic genius is a high point of nearly every show. There’s the sinister and dark (H.R.G., Nathan Petrelli, the mysterious, faceless Linderman), the confused and on a mission types (Peter Petrelli, Isaac Mendez, Claire Bennett) and just about everything in between. Also, new heroes, people with special abilities and powers, keep getting added to the mix, such as Christopher Eccelston’s invisible man character this past week, so the plot just continues to build in excitement and intrigue. If you haven’t tuned in yet, do it next Monday at 9 p.m. before you fall any further behind.

- Since we’re in the terribly awkward, twice-as-long-as-it-should-be break in between the NFL’s conference championship games and the Super Bowl, there’s plenty of time to talk about the game. Rather than dally on the X’s and O’s, the statistics and what not, I’m struck by the fact that for the first time in recent memory, I won't be rooting against either of the teams. Regardless of who wins, it’ll be cool with me. On one hand you’ve got Peyton Manning, who would silence scores and scores of doubters and haters and critics with a win, and Tony Dungy, coach of the Colts and a man who everyone thinks can't win the big game. Flip over to the other side and there’s Rex Grossman, a quarterback that the entire sports media has been ripping for about three months now as a hindrance to his team that will ultimately keep them from winning anything. Plus, you’ve got a Bears team that people are totally discounting because they come from the NFC, a conference so inferior to the AFC that no NFC team has a shot at competing with an AFC squad in the Super Bowl. Neither team has a rude, crass, abrasive coach like the Patriots have had in recent years at the Super Bowl with Bill Belichick, neither team has been to the Super Bowl in decades, so you’re not tired of them, there is no overly syrupy sweet, saccharine storyline being shoved down your throat like last year’s Jerome Bettis-Detroit native storyline that every single writer, commentator and analyst felt compelled to mention 86 times during every interview, story and show and that you’re so sick of that you actively root for that player’s team (the Steelers, in this case) to lose. So whether Indianapolis or Chicago wins, I won't be upset or disappointed. Regardless of the outcome, I’ll be smiling at the end and happy to have a Super Bowl champion I can get behind

Another Cincinnati Bengals arrest? I knew you guys had it in you!

- I need to issue an apology to the Cincinnati Bengals. I recently lamented their lackluster finish to the season in terms of having players arrested, with the squad failing to capitalize on a strong start and get to double digit arrests by season’s end. Well, maybe this is splitting hairs, but the NFL season isn't officially over, even though the Bengals’ season technically might be, but the Bengals are back at it. Defensive back and 2006 top draft pick Jonathan Joseph was arrested for possession of marijuana early this week when a vehicle he was a passenger in was pulled over on U.S. Route 42 in northern Kentucky. The vehicle was driving slowly and swerving a lot, and when the cops pulled it over, they became suspicious of what they saw and searched inside. There they found a backpack belonging to Joseph (with an NFL logo no less) that contained a bag of marijuana. Joseph getting popped for the hippie lettuce is the first arrest for a Bengal player following coach Marvin Lewis’ ultimatum on discipline and improved player conduct. But let’s not lose focus here and worry about what the team might do to Joseph; let’s put our attention squarely where it belongs, namely on the fact that the Bengals are still within reach of my goal for a true dream season, double digit arrests.

- Denver just doesn’t get a break. Residents there can't get shoveled out from the aftermath of one major snowstorm when the next one comes barreling through, and the latest one closed a long stretch of I-70, from near the Denver Airport to almost the Kansas border. Well, at least this time hundreds of travelers weren't stranded at the airport for a couple of days with area hotels jacking up their prices to take advantage of the situation. No, this time I’m sure the airport was full of passengers b*tching about three or four hour delays and wondering how many different chances this would give their airline to lose their luggage. Look, I know some people like snow and the mountains are beautiful in Colorado and what not, but why in the world would anyone choose to live in a place where you get snowed in a half dozen times or more every winter and where travel becomes nearly impossible for a few months each year? Count me out.

- Maybe there is an agenda behind every Democrat with a pulse and more than two working brain cells declaring their intent to run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. We have a woman (kind of), Hank Clinton, an African American, Barack Obama, and now a Hispanic, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has entered his name into the fray. So maybe what we’re looking at is the first-ever attempt to have every single minority represented in a primary presidential election, which might not be a bad thing. This has to be some kind of shot in the arm to affirmative action, right? All we are lacking is an Asian American, perhaps a Native American, someone of Middle Eastern descent and a candidate with Pacific Islander heritage to round this out. What is this, anyhow, the presidential race or the United Nations. In the end, all that truly matters is that the most qualified candidate wins and that their race isn't a deciding factor in how people vote - oh, and that Hank Clinton doesn’t get anywhere near the final ballot or the Oval Office.

- Not all that surprising to find out that prison inmates, at least those in state prisons, are living longer than people on the outside. Inmates are dying at a rate of 250 out of every 100,000 annually, while the rate is 308 a year for people not behind bars. But this is a predictable stat; after all, when you lay around most of the day, have a guaranteed three meals daily, are monitored round the clock by guards, have mandated daily recreation time and are assured of shelter and clothing on a permanent basis, I would imagine you would live longer. You aren't at increased risk for skin cancer because you’re only outside for an hour a day, max, you don’t have to worry about being in a car accident or being shot. You’ve got a routine you follow each day and human beings tend to thrive on consistency, schedules and routines. There is the increased risk of being shivved in the shower or having your brownie stolen during lunch hour, but those are the risks you run when you decide to commit a crime that could get you incarcerated.

- Had the door even closed behind exiting Cowboys coach Bill Parcells at the team’s Valley Ranch, Tex. headquarters when pass dropping, teammate ripping, self-centered malcontent T.O. took his first verbal shot at his former coach? Owens said, in part, that Parcells was like his grandmother, stuck in old school ways, and was a big part of the reason that the team underachieved this season and that T.O. himself was underutilized in the offense. I knew these guys hate each other, but wouldn’t common courtesy dictate that you at least allow 24 hours to pass before you start firing salvos at the guy for his performance? What, are you pissed because he didn’t like you faking a hamstring injury and riding a stationary bike on the sidelines at practice in your Lance Armstrong biking gear. T.O.? Did Bill go out there and grease the footballs up so that well-thrown passes continually slid right between your hands and onto the ground in key situations? This is coming from a guy who thinks Parcells is a pompous, abrasive ass and can't stand the guy, so when I say T.O. needs to cool it, you really know he’s crossed the line. I don’t know who the next Dallas head coach will be, but I do know that he better get a guarantee in his contract that as a condition of his accepting the job that T.O. is either traded or released, otherwise things in Dallas are going to end poorly for him, just like they did for Parcells.

- We love Venezuela, and Venezuela loves us right back! Don’t believe me? Just check out the recent comments made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on his weekly radio and television programs. His heartwarming, sincere remarks were short and simple, directed at the U.S.: “Go to hell!” Well, if that doesn’t warm your heart and stir your soul, I don’t know what does. Apparently our friend Hugo was unhappy that U.S. officials voiced disagreement with and concern over a measure that would grant increased lawmaking power to Chavez, the leftist leader of the South American nation. Under the law, Chavez could pass laws basically unilaterally by making an official decree, and his ultimate goal is a socialist system that our government doesn’t seem to like too much. Hmmm, a foreign country getting pissed about America overstepping our bounds, butting in where we don’t belong and trying to tell the rest of the world how to conduct its own business, I just didn’t see that coming. I mean, it’s not like it’s ever happened before, we’re always so universally loved and well received by those outside our borders. I just don’t know where all of Chavez’s hatred is coming from…..

- Now this presents a tough choice: recently, Oprah Winfrey opened a special school in South Africa for disadvantaged children, and I’m sure that lots of people were looking for ways to get their kids into that school, but Oprah is going to have some competition, because the Taliban is going to be opening and operating its own schools too in southern regions of Afghanistan that it still controls. Two different countries and continents, sure, but how could you not consider sending your child to school at an institution operated by a totalitarian, oppressive regime that abused and tortured people, denigrated women and generally ruled by terror in Afghanistan. Why wouldn’t junior want to learn about how to dress his future wife in one of those head-to-toe mumus and abuse her or become a terrorist fighter? I’m torn, because quite frankly, I’m sure kids will receive top-notch educations at either school, but for the time being I’m going to side with Oprah on this one.

The Donald's next target, NFL tidbits and more

- Living in Northeast Ohio, some phrases immediately strike fear into your heart: lake effect snow, “The Drive” and of course, “part of the Browns under the Butch Davis regime.” That last one applies to the man the Cleveland Browns have tabbed as their new offensive coordinator, Rob Chudzinski. Chudzinski was the tight ends coach for the Browns back when Davis coached the team, botched drafts, signed awful free agents and basically ran the franchise into the ground. The offense was no good back then, and now the Browns bring back a guy who was a part of that. Great. You’ll have to forgive me if this hiring doesn’t inspire confidence and send me into fits of jubilation. Maybe Chud will surprise everyone and be an innovative force to lead the Browns to high-scoring season and a playoff berth. But being associated with Butch Davis in any way, shape or form at the NFL level is two and a half strikes against you, and so Chud is fighting an uphill battle right away.

- This week’s “Height of Hypocrisy Award” goes to all those football commentators who are now saying, “They say Peyton Manning can’t win the big one, and now he’s won it and shut them up.” Excuse me, know-it-all commentators, but you were the ones saying that, so why don’t you stop trying to pawn it off like everyone else was doubting him but you never did. You were one of those voices flogging him for his repeated failures in the playoffs. Someone had to be the ones nay saying against him, yet all of your are pretending that it was someone else and that you were on board with him the whole time. Sure you were, just like you all didn’t rip Rex Grossman and say the Bears can't make a Super Bowl with him at quarterback, except wait, there they are, set to play the Colts in the Super Bowl. I’m waiting to hear one, just one, commentator say, “You know what, I doubted Peyton Manning, I said he couldn’t win the big one, and I was flat out wrong.” Still waiting…….

- Our national nightmare is over, football fans! The Patriots have lost, and in the ultimate ironic twist, Mr. Clutch, Tom Brady, choked in the clutch, throwing the death-blow interception with 19 seconds left as he was attempting to drive his team to the winning score. The hoodie, Bill Belichick, didn’t look so smart in the post game interview as he mumbled barely-audible, monosyllabic responses to questions. How enjoyable was it to see the bitterness and disappointment on his usually smug, arrogant face? He who usually has all the answers suddenly has none. Now, we can enjoy the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl without having to hear everyone wax poetic about how the Patriots just keep getting it done, winning the “right way” and overcoming all the odds and all of the disrespect…..zip it. Moments of joy as a sports fan aren't quite on the level with other great life moments that you actually participate in personally, but seeing the Pats lose was right at the top of my list as far as most joyful sports moments ever, period. In the immortal words of pro wrestling superstars Degeneration-X, Patriots, I’ve got two words for you…..SUCK IT!

- Time for a “Trump”-date on the Donald’s current skirmishes: the town of Palm Beach, Fla. has decided to fine Trump $1,250 a day for flying a gigantic American flag at his Mar-A-Lago property in the city. This has been going on for month, one rich dude fighting with a bunch of other rich people about the size of flag that one is allowed to fly. Based on the verbal beatdown Trump laid on Rosie and Babs Walters in their recent battle (by the way, Donald continues to hammer Rosie, he won't give up), I’m going to advise the officials in Palm Beach to reconsider their stance on this. The Donald will attack your appearance, your career, your manners, your friends, pretty much anything he can take a shot at, he will. I look forward to some smack about rich white guys who are ugly, stupid and unsuccessful coming from Trump’s pie hole very soon.

- Guatemala isn't just good for coffee and guerrilla warfare anymore. The country’s former top drug investigator and his former deputy were sentenced to ten years in a U.S. prison for conspiring to distribute cocaine in America. They were lured here under the pretense of training on fighting drug traffickers, but in reality, the plan was to catch drug traffickers - them. Weird, isn't it, our government lying to someone to achieve an objective. Where have I heard that before, like an administration lying to the country about WMDs in a certain Middle East country to justify a wrongful invasion…..but back to the matter at hand. Nice that your country’s top drug enforcers are on the wrong side of the law, I’m sure that makes Guatemalans feel great. But it’s nice to know that we share the common bond of having lying, deceiving, underhanded government officials who aren’t working for our best interests, but rather against them.

Horse meat? I'll pass. New CW reality show? I'll pass on that, too.

- Glad to see that Floyd Mayweather Sr. places a high value on family loyalty. He refuses to train Oscar De La Hoya for Oscar’s upcoming bout with Mayweather’s son, Floyd Jr………unless Oscar pays Sr. $2 million. I’m loyal to my son……unless you give me a lot of money, then I’m all yours. Tremendous family values, Sr., your loyalty and sense of obligation are truly, truly overwhelming. Father and son have had an ongoing rift since 1999 and don’t speak much, but nice of Pops to cash in on his convenient relationship of father-son to gain some extra money. If you can't use your family as a bargaining chip and leverage to earn some extra cash, then who can you use? Let’s hope Oscar doesn’t give in to Floyd’s blackmailing techniques and finds someone else to train him for the fight.

- I feel compelled to warn everyone about an upcoming menace to your TV watching experience. It’s a reality show (shocker), it’s on the CW network (yes, the one that brings you Beauty and the Geek, again, shocker) and it features the current biggest abomination to the music industry, the Pussycat Dolls (triple shocker). While I’ve stopped being amazed by the depths networks will sink to in terms of reality shows and the abysmal level of subject material they will probe, this one promises to set the bar at a new low. When you have a group of skanks whose sole claim to success is dressing in barely-there outfits, getting big name music acts to do guest spots in their videos and looking hot, I’m sure a scintillating reality show is in the offing. What, do we get to see aspiring fashion designers compete to see who can design the sluttiest outfits for the Dolls’ next video? Or do we see who can write the most lyrically inept, inane song for their next album. Intrigue, intrigue…..

- This is what happens when you raid the hotel mini bar and then don’t have the good sense to stay away from open windows. Joshua S. Hanson of Blair, Wis., fell through the window at a Minneapolis hotel on Friday and fell 16 stories before being caught by a roof overhang. I know people from Wisconsin like to think they can't handle their liquor better than most any maybe they can, but Hanson may need to rethink his policies in that area. There won't always be a roof overhang or canopy to catch your fall; this isn't the movies, where people jump out windows and fall nearly all the way to the ground before a canopy catches them and stops their fall. This sounds more like something that might happen on the tenth floor or a dorm building on your average college campus during the last week of the semester, when everyone is closing things down and getting drunk to celebrate.

- Good news for Barbaro…..kidding, this has nothing to do with the world’s most closely monitored horse - yet. A federal appeals court in Texas has ruled that slaughtering horses for meat is illegal, a move whose importance is magnified because Texas contains two extremely large horse meat processing plants. The ruling overturns a lower court ruling last year that OK’d the practice. However, a bill currently before Congress would effectively shut down all three horse meat processing plants, which would be a good development. I know places in the world eat horse, dog, cat, etc. and it’s all good, but thankfully America is not one of those places. I’m alright with horsies ending up in my glue, but I’d just as soon keep them off of my dinner plate, thanks.

- Attention California high schools….Al Davis is coming and he may be looking to rip your head coach from you. The Oakland Raiders owner, seeking a new head coach for his beleaguered NFL franchise, has now been turned down by every coach with a pulse at the NFL and college levels, it seems. Offensive assistant coach Steve Sarkesian of USC even told Al thanks but no thanks, and that has to be the cherry on top of the humiliation sundae for Davis. His team is such a joke, with so many malcontents and head cases, that no coach in his right mind would want that post. Yet Al soldiers on and is looking to talk to Lane Kiffin, Sarkesian’s co-assistant head coach at USC. How the mighty have fallen……

Panic over espionage coins, death by cooking oil and $130 to try out for a pro soccer team, oy

- Good news for all you aspiring soccer losers out there. The L.A. Galaxy, the Major League Soccer franchise in SoCal, is holding tryouts on February 11-12, so you can compete for the shot to play alongside injury faking, orange slice eating hack David Beckham. On one hand, the event is obviously a publicity grab, just as the Beckham signing is. The Galaxy are trying to get people to care about a sport and team that are so far on the fringe in America that they make Major League Lacrosse look popular by comparison. So you have that angle, but I feel compelled to point out that this is a direct exploitation of the deluded wannabe soccer players out there in order to raise some cash that the Galaxy will desperately need in order to help pay Beckham’s contract. Jeez, they’re charging people $130 apiece to try out, and if that doesn’t scream extortion, I don’t know what does. Come in, maybe kick a few balls, fake a few injuries, get a fruit punch-flavored Capri Sun and out the door you go. Like they’re going to take anyone in these tryouts too seriously….but if they can get 500 morons to shell out $130 apiece, that’s $65,000 towards the astronomical salary that D-Beck will earn, and every bit helps. Keep in mind, though, you need to be a U.S. citizen or have a green card, so no greasy-haired, mullet-wearing Euros or South Americans who can’t make the cut back home need come here and try to steal our soccer opportunities.

- Major League Baseball needs to stop playing this game of drug testing chicken with former Sen. George Mitchell, who is heading up the government’s investigation into the role of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in the sport. MLB keeps trying to hang on and resist the inquiries of the investigation, seeking to hold on to as much information and privacy as possible and giving up only what they are threatened and coerced into. Unless a court order or legislative act requires them to loosen their grip on information, they aren't going to do it. Well, Mitchell made it clear to owners at the end of the most recent MLB quarterly meetings that they will either cooperate with him or risk the involvement of the government and entities within it that have the power to sue, subpoena and compel testimony. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a series of hearings on steroids and pro sports in 2005 and 2006, leading to career-undermining moments for Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa. Now, MLB is lagging behind in complying with requests made by Mitchell, and he promised that if this keeps up, government involvement is almost certain. Look, MLB, we all realize you want to protect your image and not damage it any more than your roid-fueled stars already have, but know this: the entire country, especially the baseball fan base, is 104% certain that your players use ‘roids, period. If you come clean, allow Mitchell the access he wants and cop to what we know to be true, then maybe fans will have a chance to believe that the game is on its way to cleaning things up and could someday be a legitimate league in terms of being clean of steroids. Otherwise, you’ll continue to look like you have something to hide and are content to keep lying to those who support your sport.

- I hate stories about Lindsay Lohan, so I’ll make this quick. What concerns me the most is not that she’s an alcoholic party addict going to rehab, it’s that she was quoted as saying she was happy to be watching American Idol and was really getting a good laugh out of it. Anyone that derives pleasure from watching that glorified karaoke crapfest is clearly in need of serious mental health assistance. This proves once again that celebrities are no smarter, cooler or advanced than the rest of society and in some cases might be among the least mentally advanced members of our culture. Death to American Karaoke!

- Scratch this one off the list of potential anti-aging plastic surgery tactics: a former Salinas, California beautician was sentenced this week to 15 years in prison for injecting cooking oil into the buttocks of a patient as an anti-aging measure. The patient died, while the beautician gets a decade and a half behind bars to figure out why it doesn’t say on the bottle, “For use in cooking a gourmet meal, a great family dinner….or helping a patient’s ass look ten years younger!” As vain as many Americans may be and as desperate to turn back the clock on aging as the scores of people (especially women) who get tummy tucks, Botox, implants, collagen injections, etc. are, when you reach the point where you’re willing to allow someone to inject cooking oil into your derrière to make it look younger, it’s time you stop and take a serious look at where your life is headed. Hope that was worth dying for, the chance to have a more firm, round butt for however long this woman lived after that ill-fated procedure.

- Reason #174 that Bill Clinton will never, ever, under any circumstances, move to Michigan: as a side note in a drugs-for-sex exchange case, a Michigan appeals court ruled that if state laws regarding adultery were to be strictly enforced, the offender could be sentenced to life in prison. Although no one has been prosecuted for adultery in Michigan since 1971, the law is still on the books and apparently is on the radar of the judicial system there. Makes you wonder, if one violation could send you to prison for life, what’s the penalty for a serial adulterer? Is it possible that someone like Bubba Clinton could get the needle for his, um, numerous dalliances and affairs? Stay out of Michigan, B., because as unlikely as it is that someone will prosecute for adultery, you’re one person who should not run the risk of finding out if it actually could happen.

- Because our country needs another reason to senselessly panic over a potential terror threat that isn't actually true, the Defense Department contradicted its previous report about renegade Canadian coins containing radio frequency transmitters for use in espionage activities. Previously, the D.D. had published a friggin’ report about the coins, raising concern among many Americans and probably a high percentage of senior citizens with those dam purses full of coins that they insist on using to pay for everything including at the post office or grocery store when their bill is like $35 and they have a line of a dozen people behind them……oh, sorry, got on a mini-rage tangent there, I’m back. Anyhow, nothing like a branch of the government erroneously inciting panic, only to come back a short time later and say, “Oops, our bad, we don’t know how that happened, but never mind what we said before.” Situations like this can only bolster Americans’ confidence in those running our fine nation….right into the ground. Well done, Dept. of Defense, well done.

Mike Vick's bong, snow in SoCal and Big Brother is expanding his reach

- Rich people should be able to afford more well-disguised bongs, right? Michael Vick, perennially underachieving quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, either is skimping on his bong-purchasing budget or he’s not as smart as he thinks himself to be. Vick was stopped at a security checkpoint at the Miami International Airport on Wednesday when security noticed that the water bottle he was carrying contained some sort of “dark particulate” and a pungent smell “normally closely associated with marijuana.” Additionally, the bottle had a secret chamber and Vick was cagey about the whole thing, refusing to give the bottle up when asked to. So of course, the cops confiscated it and sent it to a lab for testing, and I think we can all see how this one will end. Vick will cop some lame excuse about how it wasn’t his, he’s sorry about the whole thing, it’s a big misunderstanding, blah, blah, blah. Funny thing is, I was once on a flight with him, flying on AirTran from Atlanta to Newport News, Va. (yes, Mike Vick flies discount airline AirTran, but in first class of course) and he did seem very chill and calm. Now I know why, because he was probably baked and in possession of one of his Dasani bongs. Aren't stoners supposed to be a little more creative when it comes to making and disguising their bongs? C’mon, Mike, you can do better than that.

- Is it possible that we are now deliberately making people famous in America for not having talent? That’s the only logical conclusion I can d raw when people insist on including Kevin Federline, a.k.a. K-Dirt, in commercials and TV programs. He and Paris Hilton are famous for……well, neither has any real talent (and no, Paris’ attempt at an album doth not talent constitute, it was an abominable failure and rightfully so, her music blows - of course so does she, but that’s a different story and you’ve seen the videos on that) but they keep popping up on TV and in the news. K-Dirt is now signed to do a Super Bowl ad for Nationwide Insurance’s “Life Comes at You Fast” campaign, playing a guy who goes from starring in a rock music video to working at a burger joint. Ha ha, too funny, whew, you’re slaying me here, Nationwide, that is soooo funny. I suppose K-Dirt does have scoreboard over his ex-wife, who got slapped down when she wanted to do a Super Bowl ad for the NFL, but other than that, dude’s only ability seems to be marrying women way more successful than him, getting them knocked up and then leaving. Is it too much to ask that someone make this guy go away permanently?

- Well this should clear up the whole “Big Brother spying on its own citizens” mess. W. and his administration of incompetent buffoons have agreed to allow a secret independent panel oversee the government’s domestic spying program. So now, some nameless, faceless entity will be helping the government in invading our personal privacy and sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong? What, is this like when the Vice President’s old company, Halliburton, got beneficial treatment in receiving government contracts? Will the administration simply find some friends of W. or Cheney who happen to be in the security business and decide to appoint them to the committee, with handsome financial compensation for their efforts? The “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court” sounds like a perfectly pedestrian, nondescript name for this group, eh? Well, if the NSA is going to illegally spy on American citizens and butt into our communications, then why not add someone else to the party? Why not let as many people as possible have access to the private, personal communications of private citizens? Great idea, W. Why don’t you go start another war with a country that has done nothing to deserve it. While you’re at it, why don’t you volunteer to be one of the 21,500 new troops going to Iraq and put yourself in harm’s way. Maybe then you can stop constantly f’ing up the life of each and every American so badly.

- Ulterior motives, ulterior motives…..looking that up in the dictionary, and yup, just as I suspected, there’s Barry Bonds’ picture next to the word. Has anyone been more transparently selfish and self-serving than Bonds? He throws innocent teammates under the bus when he tests positive for amphetamines, and now he’s shockingly coming out in support of Pete Rose and Mark McGwire, two guys with exceptionally questionable character and virtually no credibility, being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rose, of course, is serving a lifetime ban from baseball for gambling on baseball, a charge he denied for decades, then admitted when he wanted to sell his book and try to get the ban lifted. McGwire, like Bonds, is almost universally believed to have taken copious amounts of steroids to boost performance towards the tail end of their respective careers. Big Roid/Red got less than a third of the needed votes this year for HOF induction, and Bonds clearly saw that and realized his own ‘roid-fueled chances for the Hall might be in jeopardy. So he comes out and says that McGwire and Rose should be in. Gee, Bar-roid, if we follow that logic, then that means than when you come up for induction, you oughta be in too! Amazing how that works, isn't it. Why not just come out and say, “I deserve Half of Fame induction, because you can't prove I took any steroids or when I might have taken them, and I’ve hit massive amounts of home runs, so gimme my plaque and bust in the Hall!” You’d be a whole lot disingenuous and although we’d continue to marvel at what a bad guy and an a-hole you are, but at least you’d be telling the truth - for once.

- The apocalypse came to Southern California recently, in case you missed it. Well, what passes for the apocalypse for those in SoCal, anyhow. While most of the country is feeling the wrath of a major snowstorm that, depending on where you live, has dropped several inches (or in rare cases a foot or two) of snow and made live generally miserable, especially driving, the lightest of light snows fell in the southern part of California, sending residents into a near panic. Shoppers in Buffalo, N.Y. were resigned to shopping with flashlights because most places in their city, including stores, still don’t have power due to the storm, but a light dusting that probably melted within an hour or two and wasn’t enough to even roll a decent snowball from terrified SoCal natives. Hopefully none of them were out with their salt shakers, trying to melt the snow away, but they probably have no idea that table salt and salt for removing snow and ice are two different things….just a friendly winter weather reminder from one of the people in areas where snow is an unwelcome regular during winter. No charge for the advice, SoCals, this one’s on me.

The NFL disses Britney, a Sammy Sosa comeback and sadly, Donald Trump goes silent

- Nepotism, retreads, publicity grabbing - the Miami Dolphins’ search for their next head coach has all this and more. After being dumped by former coach Nick “The Nomad” Saban, the ‘Fins first made themselves look like the world’s biggest doormat when owner Wayne Huizenga professed his respect and continued admiration for the man who had just screwed over his franchise by walking out on a team he had coached to two underachieving seasons, lying about his plans to leave and then telling his assistant coaches of the decision by a conference call instead of face to face. Now, Huizenga and his merry band of stooges are either making a terribly bad football decision or they are desperately grabbing for attention by interviewing recently fired University of Alabama head coach Mike Shula for their own vacancy. Amazing coincidence, interviewing the son of your franchise’s most successful coach ever, Don Shula - keeping in mind that Don is still a senior member of the Dolphins front office. Also, how pathetic do you look, with Saban deserting you to go coach at Alabama and you go and interview the guy he replaced, the one who accumulated a mediocre 26-23 record at UA? The best thing the Dolphins can do right now is scratch Mike Shula off their list, go back to searching among candidates who are actually qualified and viable, and try not to embarrass themselves further.

- Keeping your underwear on does have its benefits. If you don’t believe me, just as Britney Spears, whose antics (which include constantly being photographed without any underwear on while out in public), approached the NFL network about being in a commercial touting the network, but was told no thanks. The NFL’s pointed reply: "She's too much of a train-wreck. Besides we already have Paris Hilton." Ouch. Brit promised her remaining fans (didn’t know there were any) a career comeback earlier this month, but that dubious promise looks to be in trouble. Of course, it’s hard to have a comeback when your music absolutely sucked in the first place and your only “talent” was dressing and dancing like a skank to bubble gum, prepackaged pop music, but I digress. So NFL network would rather have Paris Hilton, a woman who has a sex tape coming out more often than the sun sets in the west, than you, Brit? That would be when you know that you’ve gone very, very wrong. By the way, it’s the right call by the NFL. Anyone who would have sex with and marry K-Dirt clearly is not someone you want doing commercials for you.

- Take heart, all of you (this would include everyone who is not an immediate member of the Clinton family - Bill, Chelsea, Roger, etc.) who live in mortal fear that Sen. Hank Clinton of New York will run for and win the Democratic presidential bid for the 2008 election. Hank will soon be facing her stiffest opposition in the form of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who filed paperwork earlier this week to form an exploratory committee for a presidential bid, a move which also enables him to set up the framework for a campaign and begin raising funds. I can't say for sure if Obama would make a good president, but I can say he would be a better choice than the reign of terror that Hank would bring to bear. She is far too angry, far to hostile and far too frightening to unleash on the world as our new leader. Obama would be a more rational, reasonable voice and someone that our country would have a better shot of getting behind than Hank. And while there are currently 751 men, women, children and probably a few farm animals who have declared their intent to run for the Democratic nomination, Obama and Clinton are the two who are most likely to be duking it out in the end. On behalf of all Americans who don’t wish to be governed by an angry, hostile woman bent on inflicting as much feminine vengeance on men as possible in order to even the score for her husband’s repeated, voluminous infidelity, Go Obama!

- Sad news from Donald Trump…..the billionaire and smackdown artist extraordinaire says he is done with his verbal feud with/demolition of Rosie O’Donnell. O’Fat hasn’t said a word in days about the issue, which is smart on her part because clearly she wasn’t going to win that battle and was getting blown up every time she tried. But I beg the Donald to reconsider, because his smack about her being fat, disgusting inside and out, a hack comedian, ugly and a failure that he would probably sue was some of the funniest (and truest) material I’ve heard in a long time. Even if Trump never builds another skyscraper or casino and never opens another luxurious golf course in his life, his linguistic deconstruction of O’Fat and anyone who rallied to her defense was hilarious and memorable. I’m openly wishing for someone, anyone, to take another run at this guy so he can have another chance to tear into them.

- Ride that cash cow, FOX network! FOX has already busted out with a DVD for the first two episodes of this season of the show 24, even though the episodes just aired a couple days ago. for $15, you can own four hours of TV history, as in the season premiere of one of the most overhyped, overrated shows in recent memory, and you can even get a bonus few minutes from the third episode. The only way I’m down for one of those DVDs is if FOX can promise to get rid of the damn multi-window split screens that made me lose interest in the show within minutes of tuning in. Oh, and if there’s some way to CGI the crappy acting and make it better, that would help too. Otherwise, count me out on this one, I think I’ll stick to paying $20-25 for full season DVD collections of good shows that I actually like.

- On the comeback trail……it’s Sammy Sosa, the corked-bat using, steroid popping (allegedly), non-English speaking-when-I’m-in-a-Congressional-hearing-and-it-benefits-me-to-pretend-not-to-understand-English former slugger is working out to make a return to MLB and has even signed a minor league contract with the Texas Rangers that includes an invitation to spring training. Sosa has been out of the game for a couple seasons now after declining numbers (in odd conjunction with the introduction of steroids testing) and bad health resulted in no one wanting him on their team. But he’s laid low, worked out and is coming back, ostensibly in the hopes of boosting his career stats to a level that would garner him induction into the Hall of Fame. Yeah, good luck with that, Sammy. You have 588 home runs, and if you think that breaking 600 will get you into the Hall, you’re begging. Mark McGwire has 563 and was a better player for longer than you, and he didn’t even get a third of what he needed, vote-wise, to get in. So I don’t care if you hit another 100 homers from here on out, you’re not getting in. When there’s debate about whether Bar-roid Bonds, he of the multiple Gold Gloves, the 40 HR, 40 SB season, the guy about to break Hank Aaron’s career home run record, will get into the HOF because of suspected ‘roid usage, then you’re not getting in either.

A decapitation and some very ineffective firefighters.....

- It was a stupid idea last year, it’s a stupid idea this year and it will be a stupid idea every year it is done from here on out. The stupid idea would be the two-week layoff in between the NFL’s conference championship games, set for this Sunday, and the Super Bowl, not happening until February 4. All of the momentum and excitement that builds during the first three weeks of the playoffs comes to a screeching halt while we all sit on our butts and wait for the big game. We get dumb stories about things no one cares about, capped by a Super Bowl media day where players get asked the same inane questions two dozen times by media members from all around the world. You get stories like the one we got in college football when there was a 50-day span in between the end of the regular season for Ohio State and OSU’s appearance in the title game, with QB Troy Smith waxing poetic about the virtues of In-And-Out Burger, with its crispy, fresh lettuce and tomatoes and toasted bun. Two weeks is just too much time and serves no real purpose. The teams are ready to go, all the possible angles can be exhausted in one week, so just stick to the normal schedule and stop f’ing around and wasting time, NFL. One more week of trying to keep your sport in the spotlight isn't worth it. Besides, you have your own TV network, the draft is coming shortly and people already follow the NFL pretty much year round. So go back to one week between games and then maybe I won't have to hear about Peyton Manning or Tom Brady’s take on why Quizzno’s has the best tasting subs because they use the freshest veggies and the best cheese.

- Well, it’s about time someone took charge of this: a judge in Britain ruled that she alone, not a jury, will determine the cause of death for Princess Diana and her boyfriend in a crash nearly a decade ago. Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss decided that she would be the one making the call on this, and quite frankly, I’m relieved. After all, no one has paid any attention to this matter at all. No one has written multiple books about it, no one has made documentaries or TV specials about it, no one has debated it endlessly even though it happened ten damn years ago and it really isn't relevant to any of us at all. Oh wait, everyone has done exactly that. So you know what, Baroness, who gives a frak? Decide the matter, don’t decide it, who cares? She’s D-E-A-D, and she’s not coming back, no matter what the cause of her death. She has no effect on my life or the lives of anyone but a few select people who knew her and had actual ties to her while she was alive. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter and I have no idea why we’re still hearing about this ten years after the fact. Then again, people Like Oliver Stone were still making movies about JFK’s death multiple decades after it happened, so maybe we’re stuck with this one for a while too. Now if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to go smash my head into the wall for a few minutes.

- Irony lives here. Here being Draper, Utah, where a major fire broke out in, of all places, a fire station. What’s worse is that the blaze actually gutted the building while firefighters slept through it. I’m sure citizens of Draper feel very good about their prospects should their own home catch on fire. If the firefighters in your town can't even wake up and put out a fire at the actual fire station, how can they help anyone else? It took a police officer passing through the area to see the flames and smoke, but my question is what did he do then? Did he call the fire station? What do you say in that case? “Hey, did you know that your building is on fire? Yeah, the fire station, the building you’re in, the one where you have all of the equipment to, y’know, put out fires? Think you might wanna wake up and take care of that?” Better still, two firefighters were injured when they slipped and fell on ice that formed when water was pumped onto the fire to put it out. Great, fellas, so not only do you let your own building burn while you sleep, but you get taken out by some ice on the sidewalk when trying to put it out. Memo to Draper residents: use all fire retardant materials in any and all future construction projects. It’s your only hope.

- I said it before, and I stand by it: I have got to get myself involved in the beauty pageant industry. Tara Conner, the boozing, partying, sex-crazed winner of the Miss America pageant was Exhibit A, with her clubbing and make-out buddy, Miss Teen USA, Exhibit B and Katie Rees, Miss Nevada USA (banned following slutty pictures of her popping up online), Exhibit C. Well, make room for Exhibit D, Ashley Harder, Miss New Jersey USA, who has had to step down from her title after getting knocked up. She voluntarily resigned, but it just goes to support my theory that beauty pageant contestants are 1) hot, 2) love partying, 3) love sex and 4) tend to be of exceptionally questionable morals. What guy can't get down with being around hot, blonde chicks who love to knock a few back, go clubbing and get their freak on with lots of guys and sometimes other girls? See, the fact that Donald Trump is in the beauty pageant business is yet more proof that the Donald is a model for success that we can all aspire to.

- Whether you are on board with the death penalty or not and regardless of how you feel about the justice that America is supposedly bringing to Iraq, this is a grisly story that has to make your stomach turn. With Saddam Hussein now executed, justice is being administered to some of the former members of his administration. Justice in this case means they, like their leader, are being hanged. Problem is, one of those hangings went really, really awry. Awad Hamad al-Bandar, former head of Hussein’s revolutionary court, was decapitated during his hanging, which of course was not supposed to happen. The gruesome scene, which thankfully I haven't seen pictures of, came after a terrified Bander repeated some Muslim creeds and words of faith and was put into the noose. His head was pulled off of his body, and although he was going to die regardless, this is enough to make your stomach turn and make you very, very queasy. I can't believe I’m saying this, but it almost makes the American execution method of lethal injection look humane by comparison.

O.J. Simpson, angling for a deluxe sweet in the place of eternal damnation

- From the “Bad Career Moves 101” handbook…..Mike Nifong, the district attorney who so vigorously and wrongfully, it would appear, led the prosecution of the Duke University lacrosse players charged with the rape of a stripper they hired for a party, has now been removed from the case and could see things swing the other direction very quickly. He could potentially lose his license to practice law and be disbarred over the many errors and mistakes he made in the case, which itself has fallen apart and been taken over by the North Carolina Attorney General. Most of the charges have been dismissed and honestly, the three players are going to get off with a slap on the wrist at most. There’s no real case against them, and Nifong pretty clearly pushed this case forward in the hopes of it boosting his chances for reelection. Well, he was reelected, but maybe he should have saved himself the trouble and not run, because he’s going to be out as district attorney soon anyhow.

- What a week for Virginia Tech’s men’s basketball team. The Hokies took down two of the three or four most storied programs in college basketball history within a week’s time, downing Duke (at Duke, nonetheless) and then stunning top-ranked North Carolina at home in Blacksburg. Yes, the Hokies nearly blew a 22-point second-half lead to Carolina, but they held on and won, and now they are in first place in the ACC. Don’t expect it to last; the ACC is a meat grinder of a basketball conference, and no team is coming out of there with less than three conference losses, but I don’t think this is what anyone had in mind when Va. Tech joined the ACC a couple years ago. It was a football-first move, made to give the ACC 12 teams and thus the ability to hold a conference championship football game (see here $$$$). But head coach Seth Greenberg has done an amazing job and now he’s given the Hokies and their fans a week that has to go down as the best in the history of Va. Tech hoops.

- Count me out as a fan of 24, the show that apparently the entire world was waiting for the new season of. I hadn't really watched much before now, but in between a few reruns and bits of the season premiere, can’t say I am at all impressed. First of all, enough with the friggin’ multi-frame screen, when you divide the picture up into two or three frames and have separate action in all of them. That was so distracting and diversionary that I lost interest within a minute or two. Pick one scene, devote the whole screen to it and don’t bastardize things with two small windows and one medium-sized one all at once. Second, the acting was….um, not good. I don’t know how this show wins so many awards, maybe the storylines and scripts are good enough to carry what I saw as mediocre to subpar acting, but I’m not intrigued enough by what I saw to keep watching and find out. Just goes to show once again that shows which win awards and have the biggest ratings aren't necessarily the best or close to it, and shows like Veronica Mars, which struggle to build a substantial viewer base, can still be ten times the show that a series like 24 is.

- Not an inspiring weekend at the box office. Stomp the Yard, a movie about step dancing at a fictitious black university, was the top earner at $22 million gross, followed by A Night at the Museum, the kid-oriented comedy featuring Ben Stiller, and The Pursuit of Happyness coming in third. Seems like we’ve hit a post-holiday, pre-summer lull, where there are very few movies that you’re even motivated to see and virtually none that you can get excited about. When I can scan the entire listings section of local theaters and not find a single movie that would be worth $8.50 to go see, that’s bad news. Time to break out the DVD collection and hit up some Seinfeld and Everwood reruns, maybe mix in an old Western or two. Or, and I’m guessing here because it’s been so long that I’ve forgotten…..maybe the TV shows that have been on hiatus for weeks and weeks now will be airing new episodes again some time this year….maybe, but don’t bank on it.

- Not content yet with his special place reserved in hell, O.J. Simpson is continuing to angle for a deluxe suite there by peddling excerpts from his “how to” murder book and continuing to claim that it is a total work of fiction. The Juice says a chapter on the grisly murder of his ex-wife Nicole and her boyfriend Ron Goldman is entirely from a ghostwriter’s research and is not at all factual. All of the bloody clothing, the bloody knife, the evidence against O.J., is it all fictional too? And for someone who maintains he did not commit a crime, Orenthal seems awfully knowledgeable about said crime and seems hung up on it. This all has to be very healthy for his kids, too, hearing how Dad would have murdered Mom, if he did it. O.J., Pete Rose finally admitting he gambled on baseball in order to sell his book thinks you’re a terrible guy. Just admit you’re a double murderer, pay the Goldman family their money and stop insulting your wife and her friend’s memory by debasing them and their deaths in order to make a profit. You’re the worst guy ever, and honestly, they ought to make a one-time exception to the double jeopardy rule so you can be tried for their murders again and get the electric chair. You suck, Juice, and here’s hoping karma finds you out and evens the score.

- Need some laughter in your day? Try this quick hit: W. thinks the Iraqi people owe the U.S. a “debt of gratitude” for what we’ve done in their country. Yes, we’ve thrown your country into turmoil, made it one nonstop military battle and divided the country up amongst warring factions continually killing people. Yes, you have no real leadership and no one holding the country together outside of foreigners who shouldn’t be there and will have to leave eventually, but you should thank us. Why? I have no idea, but then again, no one ever has any idea what W. is talking about, so this is nothing new for him.

Gimme more Trump verbal assaults: Next target - Madonna?

- Hopefully you haven't caught any of that new NBC reality crap You’re the One That I Want. If you have, you have my sympathies, but despite the fact that the supply of good reality show ideas ended shortly after the genre was created (Survivor and The Amazing Race are the beginning and end of the good ideas list), there is a silver lining for this newest monstrosity. Unlike American Karaoke, where the winner will be continually foisted on our collective consciousness by TV magazine shows, entertainment shows and commercials after Randy, Paula and Simon have had their say, the winner of You’re the One That I Want will pretty much drop off the map. Sure, they’ll have roles in a Broadway production of Grease, but the theater is a peripheral entertainment entity here in America. The only way you’ll hear more about the winners on this show is if you’re an active fan of the theater. Otherwise, the two schmucks who are declared victorious will fade off the radar for everyone but the theater community and we won't have to have them continually shoved in our face. So something to be thankful for, unless of course the show gets canceled after a couple episodes, which would be even bigger cause for celebration.

- Next target for Donald Trump: Madonna. The Material Skank came to defense of her pal Rosie O’Fat and objected to the Donald’s full-fledged verbal assault on O’Fat and those who have defended her. I haven't heard Trump’s reply to Madge’s comments yet, but based on the way he coldly, calculatingly blew up O’Fat, then Babs Walters when she rallied to Rosie’s cause, I’m going to go ahead and assume that Trump and his people are polishing up the final version of their next statement slamming Madonna for being a musical hack who has little vocal talent, bases her career on gimmicks and shticks and once wrote an extremely sexually explicit book that made her look like an uber-skank. Heck, the Donald might even take a run at her for her legally questionable adoption kidnapping of a Malawian baby boy last year. I can see it now, “Madonna is just an ugly person, inside and out. I was very happy when he latest album failed, because I like it when bad people fail. She’s lucky to have her new baby she adopted, but she’d better be careful, or I’ll send someone over there to take her baby away from her. Why would he want to be with her and have her as a mother if he had another choice?” Let ‘er rip, Donald, this verbal warring need not end, it’s a lot more amusing than the actual news going on in the world.

- There’s a reason Charles Barkley will never be successful in running for any political office, including for governor of Alabama, which he has hinted at wanting to be. It’s the same reason Sir Charles is so successful as a TV analyst for TNT in its NBA coverage. Chuck just doesn’t have a filter on his pie hole the way most people do, especially those who are successful politicians. He says what he’s thinking, loud and obnoxiously, and doesn’t filter it to be less offensive, less rude or more politically correct. Politicians must be well-versed in the art of double talk and political speak, talking but not really saying anything or taking a definitive stand. Charles, though, will piss people off willingly, as evidenced by his on-air comments about the Cleveland Cavaliers following their 19-point loss in Phoenix. Barkley called the Cavs a terrible team still plagued by the same problems as last season, namely no real point guard and no outside shooting. Furthermore, he advised viewers not to be fooled by the Cavs having the best record in the Eastern Conference, implying that they are paper tigers and not a threat to win the NBA title. Wow, if you’ll say that about the top team in the conference, what will you say about the other teams? Some of his points are valid, albeit exaggerated somewhat, but why so bitter, Charles? You and the Cavs franchise have something big in common - namely, neither of you has ever won an NBA title. The Cavs have about a 1% chance to do so this year, but that’s still a better shot than you, a massively overweight blob whose physical conditioning skills are even worse than Shaq O’Neal’s, have at securing a ring this season or any other.

- The newest album from Switchfoot, Gravity, is drawing divergent responses from various corners of the music listening populace. On one hand, many critics have good things to say about the music itself and about the band’s aspirations to rise above the general greed and bling-heavy culture perpetrated by hip hop, pop and trendy rock groups whose lyrics pander to the lowest common denominator and have as much thoughtful insight as a drunken baboon. But there are those out there who now have Switchfoot at the top of their musical villains list because they feel the band has become a collection of sell-outs. The basis of this is that the quartet, formerly a trio, began as a Christian music artist but has now been reincarnated as a mainstream group. Those in faith-based music circles see it as a loss of principles and message, but that’s a faulty claim. Who says that just because you’re a person of faith that you have to sing songs laced from beginning to end with religious verbiage? Why can't a band sing about life and its issues and leave it at that? Besides, these guys have lives of their own offstage, and as long as they continue living the right way there, then the complainers should just enjoy the music and not demand that every song, album and concert be an evangelical crusade.

- I wanna vomit. I literally feel like I am about to throw up in my mouth. That was the overriding thought in my mind as the end of the NFL’s Divisional Playoff weekend rolled to a close. The San Diego Chargers were in the process of choking away leads of 14-3 and 21-13, frittering away their chance to knock the oh-so-annoying, ubiquitous in the playoffs New England Patriots. I’m so sick of “Golden Boy” Tom Brady and everyone celebrating the so-called genius of the hooded-sweatshirt-wearing Bill Belichick. I hate the Pats because they’re like roaches you can't kill and every now and then, you want fresh blood in the title picture. Yet San Diego couldn’t put them away, making decisive mistakes at the most inopportune moments and seeing their so-called elite players (yes, you Shawn Merriman - “Lights Out”, what a joke, this guy was out like a light all game long) disappear in the clutch. So we’re forced to endure another week of Patriots talk on our nation’s sports stations, and worse yet, the AFC title game matchup is N.E. vs. the Indianapolis Colts, two teams who seem to meet in the playoffs nearly every year and Indy being a team the Pats own in the postseason. Thus, a week of the same tired old stories, can Peyton Manning beat Belichick and Brady (gawd, I hope so), can Manning win the big game, is Belichick just the smartest guy in football……makes me wanna beat my TV set with a sledgehammer. I’ll elect for a less destructive route, though. I’ll boycott all SportsCenter broadcasts, all NFL shows on any network and all NFL news online, all in the hopes that I can avoid hearing about the Patriots and how you just can't stop them. Then, maybe the Colts will do all of America a huge favor and beat New England’s a** on Sunday and we can enjoy a Pats-free Super Bowl.

sometimes i feel like dionne warwick or the amazing crescan

- A lone voice crying in the football wilderness…..that’s what I felt like this week, because I seemed to be the only person who was adamantly saying that the Baltimore Ravens had zero chance to beat the Indianapolis Colts in their AFC Divisional playoff game. True, some did pick the Colts to win, but even they hedged, hemmed and hawed and refused to count the Ravens out. My reason was simple: sooner or later, Steve McNair was going to remember that he is Steve McNair and start playing like it. Heck, he’s had a mediocre season at best. People just willingly allowed themselves to get caught up the euphoria of a feel good story, older quarterback, treated poorly by his former team and jettisoned for a newer model, seeking redemption with a new team. Problem was, the Ravens didn’t win because of McNair this season, they went 13-3 in spite of him. A fantastic defense carried them all year, with Steve-O posting pedestrian 16 TD, 12 INT stats. And of course, against the Colts, he was 18-29 for 173 yards with 2 INT and a lost fumble. Look elsewhere for your pick-me-up NFL story, everyone, because Old Man McNair turned back into a pumpkin when the clock struck midnight.

- Men everywhere will be standing at attention and saluting in February, when a former Air Force staff sergeant will appear on the pages of the magazine that men read for the articles, Playboy. Whether you find those kinds of magazines morally offensive or not, this situation has a funny smell to it, namely because Michelle Manhart, has been relieved or her duties while the military investigates what she did. She maintains she did nothing wrong and thus didn’t expect any punishment, but I beg to differ. Something tells me that she was looking to get into trouble, maybe even get booted from the military by being photographed in (then out) of uniform and holding weapons. Maybe Manhart is looking to set up a modeling or acting career post-military. Regardless, how could anyone believe they could pose for a skin mag and not have the military, a place of conformity, uniformity and conservative thinking, object? Nice try, Sergeant Manhart. Dismissed.

- Cameron Diaz apparently has had her fill of sexy and doesn’t want it back. She and weasel-voiced former man bander Justin Timberlake have broken up, but you can't feel too bad for either. That’s especially true for Diaz, because there are dozens of other former man banders out there, from 98 Degrees of Backstreet Men from O-Town Sync and similar groups. And hey, Cameron, know what, I think Lance Bass is single, and - wait, scratch that, Lance Bass might not be an option, at least not for the women out there. But hey, a hot blond actress with loads of money, I’m sure she’ll be aright. Timberlake, on the other hand, can keep copying old Michael Jackson dance moves and styles for the near future to keep himself going.

- If you thought Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, seemed especially dorky and loser-ish in recent years, you were correct. Hard to be anything but a giant group of dorks when your president is a full-fledged Trekkie. Kim Goldenberg, the outgoing university president, got the thrill of his loser lifetime when Leonard Nimoy, who played one of the nerdy characters on Star Trek, attended his retirement party. Nimoy, who apparently has become so hard up for cash that he’s appearing at the retirement parties of president’s from mediocre Midwestern universities to make some money, gave Dorken-berg, er , Goldenberg, the Vulcan salute, the proper greeting for guys who have the social skills and coolness of a rock. If President Bush is looking for people to fulfill his desired 22,000-soldier surge in Iraq, may I suggest that we round up all the Trekkies, Star Wars dorks, Lord of the Rings losers and ship them over there first? Those are groups of people that our country would not be worse off without.

- One of life’s ultimate oxymorons: the creation of a George W. Bush presidential library. How on earth can you build a library for a man whose reading level hasn’t risen above Curious George? The library would be located on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, but the proposed library has caused division on the campus. Some claim the library would wrongfully celebrate a president who led the country into an unnecessary war. My question, though, is how are you going to find enough picture books and coloring books to fill a library? The standard ought to be that no book that the president himself is unable to read can be included, so that would rule out anything that most of us read from, oh, third grade on. The Little Engine That Could might be pushing it, honestly. Let’s scratch the library idea and going with something more appropriate, like a giant diorama depicting all the similarities between W. and another of our warmongering former leaders, Richard Nixon.

hittin' it friday style

- Memo to TV network executives: a two-month lapse right in the middle of the season, with no new episodes all that time, is a terrible idea. Really. You’d think I wouldn’t have to spell that out, but apparently someone needs to. Nearly every show, except for the crappy ones that no one wants to see or the plethora of FOX shows that started late due to the baseball playoffs, are taking a two-month hiatus from airing new episodes from about mid-to-late November to the middle or end of January. You can use whatever explanation you want; holiday programming, people having a lot to do during the holidays and less time for TV, blah, blah, blah. Fact is, the humongously stupid people who decide to set things up this way have now created, in effect, two mini-seasons, meaning all the normal beefs you have with a season of a given show are doubled. First and foremost, you’ve forgotten a lot of the details about what’s going on in the storylines because it’s been so long since you watched a new episode. Over the summer, you have about 3-4 months to forget that stuff, and now a break nearly that long in the middle of the season? Idiotic. Second, whatever momentum the show has built over the first half of the season is effectively killed, so you’re starting from scratch again. And thirdly, you have fans of the show confused as to when new episodes will begin and since the new shows begin at a slightly different time (scattered throughout January and even into February), it’s even more confusing. The new “winter break” is starting to ruin the TV watching experience, creating more confusion and antagonizing more viewers than it is actually benefiting anyone.

- For the first time anyone, anywhere can remember, Barry Bonds is apologizing, kinda. Bar-roid, or more likely his agent or publicist, has issued an apology statement that offers a mea culpa to fans, teammates and the Giants organization. Also, Bonds/his mouthpiece apologized to teammate Mark Sweeney, whom Bonds fingered to a federal investigator as his source for the amphetamines that caused Bar-roid’s positive drug test. Now, he claims he brought Sweeney’s name up but didn’t try to push blame on him. So either he’s lying and covering his own arse, or he reflexively threw someone else’s name out there and cast aspersions on an innocent guy with no reason. Oh, and the sincerity is simply oozing from Bonds on this one. How convenient that after Mark McGwire, who is the #1 steroid suspect outside of Bonds, was resoundingly rejected for Hall of Fame induction, that Bonds is trying to repair damage to his rep and to appear contrite about that egregious error he made here. Well, the egregious error in point the finger at Sweeney. The other error, the one where he took a banned substance and tested positive, he can't really undo that one.

- Maybe you hadn’t heard, but the new season of American Karaoke is starting up. Oh, you’ve seen one of the thousands of commercials FOX has run for the show the past week? Can’t get away from them, you say? At some point, isn't America going to get tired of this crap? Set aside the gawd-awful pop music and bad covers of bad songs, no-talent hacks and a show that takes glee in humiliating the losers who clearly have no ability and try anyhow, and answer this question: how the hell can you really get into a show where the judges are three B-list (at best) celebs who are trying to build their own careers on the backs of this show? It’s not even about the people supposedly trying to make it in the music business, it’s about Simon crafting his bitter, surly image, of Paula Abdul being a washed up pop princess and being so perky and smiling in such a demented fashion that she has to be on no less than four different medications at a given time. Oh, and that man-blouse-wearing, teeth bleaching, tan-in-a-bottle wearing metrosexual freak, Ryan Suck-crest, trying to be clever and funny and to get an upgrade from hosting a second-rate New Year’s Eve show every year. See, now I’m getting pissed and I won't even watch a second of this show. Someone needs to get rid of this crap before I set fire to the studios where they tape the show and use all of the notes, production material and paperwork from the show as fuel for the fire.

- Congress is resisting the president’s new plan for Iraq, and I for one couldn’t be more pleased. Normally Congress resists things like common sense, logic, progress, fiscal responsibility, integrity and honor, but for once they have it right. Well done, Congress, well done. Even some Republicans voiced opposition when W. lackey, Secretary of State and aspiring NFL commissioner (sorry, Condi, that job got filled) Condoleeza Rice appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In fact, 21 members of the committee voiced dissent, with only two exceptions among the members. The best quote for the day comes from my nomination for Senator of the Week, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who accurately labeled the new plan as “a dangerous foreign policy blunder,” and vowed to oppose Bush should he try to implement it. You know a plan is bad when it doesn’t even make it past the first Senate committee before it gets torn to shreds. W. is looking worse by the day, and after the way he handled the first portion of the Iraq war, that didn’t seem possible. Worst quote of the day came courtesy of Rice, who used the world’s most convoluted, nonsensical logic to explain that adding 22,000 troops, as our Idiot in Chief proposes, is not an escalation of the conflict. Increasing troops isn't an escalation? Escalation means a rise or increase, no? I suppose it is comforting to know that W.’s sycophantic henchmen (and henchwomen) will mimic and imitate him to the bitter end, even when doing so requires double talk, stupidity and blatantly ignoring the facts in a futile attempt to ignore a massive failure.

Gorging on Dodger Dogs, wasting big money on soccer

- Normally when a company spends $250 million on something, anything - it’s a significant deal that you just can't ignore. But never has $250 million spent and so little care aroused as when the L.A. Galaxy (I realize you don’t know who they are. Well, the short answer is a pro soccer team in L.A.) signed flopping, injury faking, orange slice eating, Capri Sun drinking soccer “star” David Beckham. Supposedly Becks is the world’s most famous soccer player, but since no one in America gives a crap about soccer outside of the thousands of kids under age 12 whose parents force them to play it, this guy is less well known than the fifty-third man on an NFL roster. Yet the Galaxy ponied up $250 million for five years to sign this guy away from his Euro club, Real Madrid. How a Major League Soccer franchise even has $250 million is a mystery. But don’t you have better things to do with your money? No one cares about soccer here and no one is going to care just because you signed Beckham and he’s bringing his former Spice Girl wife with him. I just hope this guy realizes that once he arrives, no one will care about who he is and that he can keep from acting like a rock star when to Americans, he’s just a nameless, faceless dude who fakes injuries and tries to kick a ball into a net.

- Bad idea by the L.A. Dodgers, creating a $40 “All You Can Eat” pavilion at Dodger Stadium during games. For a mere $40, fans can gain entry into the right field pavilion, where them can jam as much stadium food as possible into their pie holes. So many potential problems with this: 1) You’re going to have to install a huge vomitorium out there or put a giant trash can every five feet to catch all the upchuck from people who try to eat 15 Dodger Dogs or 20 sticks of cotton candy, 2) Some liquored up losers will undoubtedly use the mass quantities of food to either throw at each other or throw at the players on the field, 3) There is gonna have to be a security officer at the exit of the pavilion, wanding people and patting them down so they can't smuggle food to the outside. Y’know, jam a dozen Dodger Dogs into their pockets, purses and pants and trying to get over that way by taking them to friends outside the pavilion…..anyhow, my point is that this idea is going to end disastrously for the Dodgers, but don’t take my word for it, try it out and see for yourself.

- Hard to determine if W. is stubborn or simply myopic at this point. Either he’s so bull-headed and dogmatic that he can't admit defeat in the Iraq war even thought it’s painfully obvious to everyone that this is his own personal Vietnam, or he’s deluded to the point that he actually believes that we still can come out on top in this thing. But outside of a few Republican Party sycophants, do you hear anyone else enthusiastically onboard with his plan to send in more troops? Even those who say they support the idea probably don’t believe it, they’re just being good soldiers and repeating the party line. A thought, though: you’re telling me we actually got to the point of starting the impeachment process with Bubba Clinton, but no one has raised the idea with W? How is this possible? On most issues, he’s clueless, ineffective and incompetent, and those are the good ones. On the Iraq situation and in fighting the War on Terror, this administration is terrible to the point of absurdity, but no one has even suggested we try impeaching W? Why not take a shot? I don’t like the idea of waiting for his term in office to run its course and to elect a new leader in 2008. Get rid of this buffoon and do it now.

- The ladies (actually, with Rosie O’Fat on board, that term no longer applies) of The View might want to dig a fox hole and crawl in, because the verbal onslaught from the Donald is reaching nuclear proportions. Trump has taken repeated and increasingly volatile runs at Rosie since she made the mistake of taking a run at him following the whole Miss America/drinking/partying/sex scandal situation. Besides the fact that every guy in America took one look at Miss America Tara Conner and was on board with Trump allowing her to keep her crown, Rosie seemed to forget that she is loud, crass, fat, ugly, sloppy and not funny. No one likes her, so when the Donald starting unloading verbal salvos and destroying her, he was unanimously applauded. Then Barbara Walters, leader of the View gang, made a feeble attempt to step in and diffuse the Donald’s linguistic bombs, and so now he’s taking her on as well. Among other things, he said Babs was pathetic for having to read her retort off of a cue card and that she’s letting a third-rate comedienne (that’s not really fair, Rosie is a fourth-rate comedienne at best) run roughshod over her show. So the other two women on the show, whose names I don’t know and don’t care to, had best keep their mouths closed and their heads down before the Donald decides to blow them up too.

- Surprise, surprise….Barry Bonds failed a drug test. I know, I can't believe it either. He tested positive for amphetamines in 2006, and of course, being the stand up guy he is, Bonds immediately…..pointed the finger at someone else, namely teammate Mark Sweeney. First, kudos to Bar-roid for being so quick to pass the buck and try to shovel the blame onto someone else. Whatever happened to having your teammate’s back? Granted, the person Bonds ratted Sweeney out to was a federal investigator, but even so….if it’s true, way to support a teammate. If it’s false and he’s just throwing Sweeney under the bus to save his own skin, then that’s even worse. Furthermore, how amazing is it that a guy like Bar-roid, in the center of the steroids maelstrom, would even think of taking something that could lead to a positive drug test? Regardless of whether they came from Sweeney’s locker and Bonds thought they were something along the lines of caffeine pills, how can you take that risk, being that guy and having all the scrutiny you have? Seeing how Mark McGwire is being treated and blackballed from the Hall of Fame right now, Bonds should be doing the exact opposite of what he is doing - in other words, he needs to run in the opposite direction from anything even remotely linked to steroids or performance enhancers. His rep is already in the toilet, and this turd he just dropped is only gonna make it worse.

- College guys who sing in an all-male a cappella group have to expect a lot of grief and heckling. The coordinated outfits, the cheesy doo-wop songs and manly persona of choral singers are going to get plenty of grief and not win over too many hot college girls, but I think we can draw the line of acceptable heckling at hurling anti-gay slurs at said singers and physically assaulting them. The Baker’s Dozen a cappella group from Yale University received that treatment after singing the Star Spangled Banner at a New Year’s Eve party in California. No word on what the national anthem was their song for a New Year’s Eve party or whether they wore matching holiday sweaters, but why not dial it down to wedgies and swirlies, maybe even hit them with a pie in the face? Anti-gay slurring and beating them down is going too far, and the yet-to-be found goons who assaulted them must be feeling quite tough and studly, whipping on an Ivy League choral group.

- There may not be enough morning radio and TV shows to hold all of the announcements by those intending to run for the Democratic presidential bid in 2008. No-name Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut went on Don Imus’ radio show to announce that he will run, bringing the total to about 152. While I would rather see Dodd or one of his anonymous Democratic brethren run and win rather than see Sen. Hank Clinton of New York be the Dems’ choice, why these E-list candidates are even trying is beyond me. Assuming Barack Obama runs, he’s going to get the nod, so let’s go ahead and end the charade, B. Announce you’re running so all these other wannabes will realize they have no chance and they can stop wasting our time declaring their plans to run.

The new iPhone, a psycho NBA wife and a coach who punches kids in the junk

- Worst coach ever: Gregory Lynn Burr, a now-former high school basketball coach in Monument, Colorado. Any of the three awful things this guy did would be enough to get him, as a person working with young people, fired with a bullet. One, he is accused of showing porn to students, which I have to think is, oh, I don’t know, against the law. Two, he is accused of dousing his players with water and then driving them home in the freezing cold with his car windows down, strike two. But the coup de tat of the whole mess is the fact that he’s been accused of blasting male students in the package. His trick would be asking them what the capital of Thailand is, and when they inevitably answered “Bangkok,” he would then hit them in the junk. One student estimated some of the players were hit in the groin 30-40 times. Hilarious, Gregory……well, it might have been hilarious when I was ten, but now, not so much. How did this guy not realize that kids were going to tell their parents that he did this stuff? One student actually required scrotal surgery (yikes, that’s a terrible phrase) to repair damage done by the coach. Y’know, maybe I was wrong about Bob Knight. I mean, he did throw a vase at a secretary, choke a player, verbally assault a student, etc., but he’s never whacked any of his players in the package, at least not that we know of.

- If you have a chance, check out the new Apple iPhone, the next step toward us having our computers, MP3 players, phones, televisions, cameras and pretty much every other piece of technology we own all rolled into one package. For $499 to $599, you can get one, but only with Cingular service. The device has an unbelievable screen, bright and vivid, and the display can become both a keyboard and a control panel. Overall, this new gadget does look awesome and I’m sure it’ll cause Apple’s stock to shoot up even further, but it does raise an interesting point: when you cram all of these different capabilities and utilities into one small item, how exponentially screwed are you if you ever lose it? I’m not even talking about losing something so expensive, I just mean you’ve not only lost your phone, but your tunes, your online capabilities, your camera, etc. But there will undoubtedly be a line to get the iPhone, just like hundreds of idiots camped out to plunk down $600 for the new PS3.

- Why stop at one story of a teacher or coach abusing their position of authority and harming the very kids they are supposed to teach and help when you can have two? Christine Kosik, an English teacher at South Fayette High School in Morgan, Pa., resigned Tuesday after allegations of an underage drinking party at her home. What’s amazing is that Kosik was a semifinalist for Pennsylvania’s 2007 Teacher of the Year Award. Well, at least now we know why: the kids were absolutely going to love a teacher who gave them free booze, without a doubt. Get an A on this test, you get to come to a kegger at Mrs. K’s house, kids. Keg stands will earn you five extra credit points on your next assignment, students. But since our nation’s teachers and coaches seem to need a refresher course in what is and is not acceptable, here are a few pointers: 1) no drugs, booze, porn or smokes can be given out, 2) you may not tell kids dumb riddles and then punch them in the package when they answer, 3) physical torture is out of the question, period, 4) you should not be participating in any activity with your students if it can land you in prison and 5) teach the lesson, hand out homework, grade tests, coach the players, leave it at that, k?

- The parallels between W. and Richard Nixon just keep on comin’. Both have their own war they started that never should have happened, (Iraq and Vietnam, respectively), both refuse to end said war even though it’s a clear failure, both are incredibly incompetent, and now they have both had lawyer Fred Fielding as their legal counsel. W., feeling that hiring the legal counsel for a man run out of office and implicated in one of our nation’s biggest political scandals ever is a good idea, brought in Fielding to replace Harriet Myers, who resigned last week. Honestly, unless you can be sued for being a humongous dumbass, then I don’t know why W. needs legal representation. Are Iraqis going to sue him for wrongfully invading their country? Can Americans sue him for wasting our tax dollars and the lives of thousands of American military personnel on his self-created war? On second thought, we should be able to do that, but our courts wouldn’t be able to handle all of the cases it would create. Maybe a class action suit………

- Ah, a good border skirmish over a funny odor…….New York and New Jersey, deciding that they want to act like feuding six-year olds, are playing a game of “He did it….no, you did it,” over the funky smell that wafted through NYC this week. New York officials began by trying to pin the blame for the incident on Jersey, but Jersey officials shot back that New Yorkers were doing what they always do, trying to pawn negative allegations off on their ugly stepchild to the south, New Jersey. Later on, though, those investigating the matter were forced to admit that the odor wasn’t emanating from New York’s Greenwich Village, which had been suspected, but possibly from a natural gas pipeline in New Jersey. Above all, I think everyone in America can agree on one thing: we’re thankful to have yet more ammunition from which to fashion New Jersey jokes. For a while there, we were getting short on fresh material, but this one should keep the one-liners flying for years to come. Good times………

- It’s difficult for a man to admit that his wife or girlfriend has abused him, physically or otherwise. Doing so runs contradictory to the macho, manly mindset that guys tend to have, and nobody wants to admit that he’s weak enough to be abused by a woman. In this case, though, I don’t think any less of New Jersey Nets point guard Jason Kidd based on claims he made in his petition filing for divorce from his wife of ten years, Joumana. Among other things, Kidd fingers his wife for using their then eight-year-old son to sneak into the Nets’ locker room and pull the names and numbers of people Kidd had called on his cell phone. Then, according to the petition, Joumana Kidd left the couple’s son alone and went out to her front row seat where she proceeded to verbally berate and heckle her husband during the entire game. Now if that doesn’t say spousal love and cherishing, supporting and caring for your spouse in sickness and health, for richer or poorer until death parts you, I don’t know what does. I wonder this often, so I’ll ask it aloud: for guys who are famous pro athletes, can't you pull better talent? You have to be able to find a hot, mildly intelligent, non-paranoid and psycho chick to marry, right? Oh, and the cherry on the spousal abuse sundae….Joumana Kidd also reportedly placed tracking devices on her husband’s vehicle, y’know, just to keep tabs on him. Worst wife ever? I don’t know about that, but she has to be Top Ten.

New York City terorized by and odor, Austin by dozens of dead birds

- How f’d up has our society become when a funny odor in the air in Manhattan causes an entire city to go into panic? City officials and utility providers scrambled to make sure that nothing was amiss, but after all of their investigating and checking, no one has a clue what the odor was or what caused it. Nothing like a whole city of people going into a panic, though, just because of a smell. But New York is full of smells, many of them unpleasant and disagreeable to the senses, but since when does that mean something is majorly wrong. And honestly, don’t you think that terrorists could find an odorless toxin if they were planning a strike? Isn't that why carbon monoxide is the “silent killer,” because you can't see or smell it? Odds are, an unusually high number of rats happened to die near some sort of ventilation system and the odor got circulated around the island. But we’ve all become too terror-conscious and paranoid if a single funky odor sends us flying into a panic.

- The class of inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was formally announced Monday, with R.E.M., poet/starlet/singer Patti Smith, Van Halen, Grandmaster Flash and Ronnie Spector filling out the induction class. It’s always interesting to see what diverse blend of characters get inducted in a given year, because when you have a 1970s hippie chick/free spirit like Smith, who was a major figure on the punk scene in New York that time, a rap pioneer like Flash, college rockers turned rock staples like R.E.M. and 80s hair bands like Van Halen, it’s hard to imagine these people, musically at least, having anything to do with one another. But for this occasion, they’ll be tied together, and each has had some influence on rock and roll along the way. On a side note, if you’re interested in learning more about Smith’s wild, radical life, a good place to start is Legs McNeil’s Please Kill Me: An Uncensored Oral History of Punk. Smith is featured prominently in several chapters of the book, including her beginnings as an aspiring poet on the New York art scene.

- When you’ve got the time and motivation to deliberately poison more than five-dozen wild birds, it’s time to take a serious look at where your life is headed. Wildlife experts in Austin, Texas, point to poisoning as the likely cause of death for some 63 birds that were found in downtown Austin. Ten city blocks were shut down while the birds were cleaned up, but officials said that the deceased birds posed no health threat to the people of Austin. Look, I think a lot of us have probably poisoned the neighbor’s annoying cat that wouldn’t stop digging in the flower bed by leaving out some antifreeze or something along those lines (well, at least a few of us have, no need to name names), but mass poisoning of some pigeons or sea gulls is twisted. Yes, they’re annoying, yes, they tend to crap on your car right after you wash it, but you still should not be poisoning them to solve the problem. Poisoning those you have gripes with is not a solid life and conflict management strategy, so next time just buy an umbrella or car cover.

- Surprise, surprise, Mark McGwire wasn’t elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot. I guess ducking and dodging questions in a public congressional hearing and looking like a big phony fraud do stick to a person. Big Roid/Red was named on just over 23 percent of ballots, leaving him a mere 52 percent short of the necessary 75 percent required for selection. Cal Ripken, a thin, non-power hitting shortstop, and Tony Gwynn, who only used performance enhancers if pastries and ice cream are considered steroids, were chosen in their first time on the ballot. McGwire’s uber-poor showing portends major problems or him not just this time, but also in the years ahead as he goes through his 15 years on the ballot. If he had gotten 50 percent or so, you could have made a decent argument that as we got some distance from the Congressional hearings debacle and the whole steroids mess, Big Roid could have a chance to make the Hall. But now, with 77 percent of voters rejecting him when he needs about that same amount to approve him, it seems very, very doubtful that he’ll ever get in. Of course, that’s the way it should be, because he’s disgraced himself and the game of baseball with his whole act and with the fact that he most definitely took ‘roids.

- For the sake of USC football fans (and who isn't concerned about the well being of rich, upper class, snobbish SoCal natives with the Blackberries, Botox and Hummers)…..I sincerely hope that USC football coach Pete Carroll just says no to Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga. Huizenga, whose former coach and noted liar Nick Saban bolted the ‘Fins for the Alabama job, is coming after Carroll to be his next coach, even going as far to take his private jet down to Costa Rica, where Carroll is on vacation. Actually, I hope Carroll says no for his own sake too. Sports “experts” and commentators talk about the NFL like it’s the be all, end all of sports, that it’s the highest level and that any successful college coach will eventually seek an NFL job because it’s what they all aspire to. In my view, it’s an apples to oranges comparison, because college and pro football are two separate and distinctly different entities. Pro coaches are hired and fired at will, given one or maybe two years to succeed and expected to work 20 hour days and sleep in their offices. College coaches work long hours too, but not as extreme. A guy like Carroll, who has achieved great success at the college level, doesn’t have to kill himself with work. He can enjoy life, actually spend time with his family and be at a place where he’s universally loved and revered. Basically, he could hold that job for the rest of his life if he wanted. USC is an established program, and top players flock there almost without being asked. In college, Carroll has the hammer: the players are there because they’ve been given a scholarship by him, and he controls playing time so he’s the final authority. In the NFL, players sign massive contracts and so the owners paying them expect that they will play and produce, and the players are out for their own stats and gain. Most of the time, they couldn’t care less who the coach is or for his well being. Stay in college Pete, it’s a better gig and how are you going to beat coaching in balmy SoCal, being a perennial national title contender and having an up close view of the USC Song Girls at every home game?

Is the Sudan part of New Mexico? The N.M. governor thinks so......

- Thanks for nothing, The Journal of Pediatrics. This pioneering publication has unearthed stunning news that preteen girls are at a higher risk of becoming fat. One, who would have guessed that those in the 9-12 age bracket are at risk for weight gain? Stunning, since that tends to be a time when kids, um, grow a whole heck of a lot. But two, have these researches stepped outside of a lab recently? Have they not seen people in every age group, race and from both sexes become incredibly fat? People from coast to coast need to drop major pounds, and people plump up at varying ages, so I think we ought to just expand our study of obesity beyond a four-year period in the lives of young girls. What’s next, are you going to tell me that girls between the ages of 12-17 are more likely to rack up massive cell phone minutes than the rest of the population? Well done, Journal of Pediatrics, I never tire of people telling me things that everyone with a brain already knows.

- When a state elects a governor and pays the salary of that governor, would it be terribly unreasonable to, I don’t know, expect that individual to actually govern his or her state? New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson seems to be under the impression that the Sudan is one of the legislative districts in his state, because otherwise, how do you explain his visiting the African nation on some sort of peace mission? Bill, many of us are concerned about the Darfur region, and I’m sure Bono will be doing many interviews about it, but you, my main man, are the governor of New Mexico. None of your state’s problems with economy, education, infrastructure or taxes are in any way related to Sudan. I know you want to run for president in 2008, which is cool, but in the mean time, how’s about you stay in New Mexico and try to do the job you were actually elected to do, not the one you hope to be elected to next year. Besides, why exactly would Sudanese officials be concerned with what the governor of one of our nation’s less significant states has to say about their own civil conflict? Ugly American, party of one please.

- Go away and stay away. That’s the message Bill Parcells should heed as he debates whether to return as the coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 2007. Parcells has become a coaching liability, a guy who is more of a sideshow act and distraction than an actual benefit to his team. His main value is to those looking for rude, curt and sarcastic comments from his press conferences and to see if he can act like more of an ass today than he did yesterday. The Cowboys weren't well coached this season, and their offense, especially inside the 10-yard-line, was more predictable than seeing a movie that you’ve watched a couple hundred times. Even blind, deaf, mute, illiterate coma patients who’d never seen a football game in their life knew that Parcells was going to call a running play on every snap once he got within ten yards of the end zone. He couldn’t even coach his team past the first round of the playoffs in a less than mediocre NFC, and Dallas would be taking a huge step back if they have the Tuna back on the sidelines next season.

- Only in professional golf……the PGA Tour opened its 2007 season this past weekend, and for finishing dead last in the field with a score of 20-over-par, golfer Ben Curtis (a Kent State alum finishing dead last, not at all surprising) still received $51,000. Most of America doesn’t care about golf, and those who follow it casually still only focus on the four major tournaments (Masters, U.S. Open, British Open, PGA Championship), but these guys still rake in tons of cash. There are less than five golfers that a casual , non-golf sports fan could pick out, but sponsors throw down millions and millions to sponsor tournaments? Golf is alright, fun to play every now and then, but it’s a ridiculous paradox to have such a peripheral sport in this country pay out such ridiculous amounts of money to guys who don’t even win the tournaments, let alone those who finish in last place. Oh, and of course this particular tournament was in Hawaii, and what a burden to have to play golf in Hawaii……..

- I can't decide if the following is a “We’re desperate for programming,” thing, a “We’re psychotically addicted to Ohio State and can't possibly turn out thoughts to anything else,’ thing, or just a “We’re incredibly stupid and devoid of any original thoughts,” thing, so help me decide: Cleveland radio station WKNR-AM, a sports station, has not once, but twice in this young new year rebroadcast (yes, rebroadcast) the Ohio State-Michigan football game. I know people love their football and their Buckeyes (some people to a scary level), but I think once on TV or radio is enough. What kind of loser listens to or watches the game live, then listens to not one, but two rebroadcasts of the same game on radio? The outcome isn't going to change, people. See, this is what happens when you have two damn months in between OSU’s last regular season game and their bowl game, you have idiotic radio stations trying to feed their Buckeyes jones by twice replaying a game that has already happened. Furthermore, WKNR preempted its best daily show, the M-F Jim Rome Show, for this rehashed OSU crap. As many things as I love about sports, one thing I hate is when coverage for, or things related to a sporting event are so over-promoted and shoved down your throat that you begin to hate that even because of it. Don’t ruin an exciting title game by overdosing everyone on regurgitations of Buckeye games that have already been played, morons.

Sunday fun

- I haven't mentioned it yet this year, but just so you know that it hasn’t changed: George W. Bush is still a moron, just as stupid in 2007 as he was in 2006. His great new plan for Iraq calls for……..yup, you guessed it, more troops! We keep sending more and more, and the rate at which they are being killed is increasing, so this isn't at all a formula for disaster - oh, wait, it is. Our Commander in Chief will keep on ignoring the obvious solution, admitting the whole Iraq invasion was a mistake and withdrawing all of our troops immediately so the Iraqis can figure this mess out for themselves. On Wednesday, W. will address the nation, and of course that means while all of the networks put his speech on, I’ll be finding a college basketball game to watch instead. But his new plan puts him directly in confrontation with the Democratic-led Congress, so we can hold out hope that some Democratic senators and representatives will attend the speech, heckle W. and throw flares and rocks at him like Euro soccer hooligans at a big EPL match. Well, at least that’s my dream. Hank Clinton can even come from stage right and clothesline W., then grab the mic, WWE-style, and declare, “That’s right, b*tch, I’m comin’ for your seat in the Oval Office!”

- Speaking of our (un)beloved and mentally challenged leader….W. is claiming that a new federal law gives him the right to read any letter he wants when that letter is sent via U.S. mail. I haven't read the law itself, so I can't comment on whether that’s true or not, but let’s assume that the worst case scenario is true and that the Prez has the right to be nosy and read your letter if he wants. How can you possibly combat this? Simple, actually: make sure that you write letters only using words with more than one syllable. Multi-syllabic words will absolutely confuse the hell out of that doofus, and if you can work in some three and four syllable words, he’ll need a bottle of Excedrin just to cope with the headache he’ll have from trying to read your letter. “Com-, com-, com-……….aww, Cheney, ‘git in here and tell me what this letter says, I can't read this word!” Stick to things you can figure out, W, namely trying to fish the prize out of your box of Cracker Jacks.

- Worst off season move in Major League Baseball goes to…..the Arizona Diamondbacks. The off season isn't over yet, but the race for this award is. The D-Backs not only traded for a 42-year-old lefty who’s steadily breaking down, both physically and mentally, but they extended his deal by two years and $26 million, further compounding their error. Giving the Yankees three good prospects for him is even worse. This looks a lot like a desperate grab by Arizona for their glory days, when they smacked down the Yanks in the 2001 World Series with Big Unit and Schilling leading the rotation. I know the National League West is very mediocre and you think that adding any semblance of talent at all will give you a shot, ‘Zona, but this was a bad move at a bad time. Remember, in baseball, contracts are guaranteed, so you can't just cut Johnson and save millions when he falls apart.

- Well, it’s certainly good to be seeing some benefits from our efforts to fight the good fight in Afghanistan. By that, of course, I am referring to an insurgence of Afghan heroin into the U.S. following our toppling of the country’s Taliban regime five years ago. Nearly 90 percent of the world’s heroin is made from poppies in Afghanistan, and while the percentage of heroin in the U.S. is still overwhelmingly from South America, South America’s percentage has dropped 19 percent in recent years as the amount coming from Afghanistan has risen. The Drug Enforcement Agency maintains that Afghan heroin isn't becoming a bigger problem, and I for one am stunned to see an official in a government agency during the W. administration refuse to admit an obvious problem. So we liberate Afghanistan, we get more heroin from them, we invade Iraq to protect our Middle East oil interests……who are we going to invade next, Japan or Taiwan so we can get cheaper, better electronics and technology?

- When did a field goal or extra point become the most difficult play in football? In a three week span, the Cincinnati Bengals botched an extra point to lose a game in Denver, a field goal to lose a game that would have put them in the playoffs a week later, then the Dallas Cowboys botch an easy field goal attempt that would have won their first round playoff game in Seattle. The first Cincy botch and the Dallas misfire both came on the snap and hold of the ball, not the actual kick. But how players can't execute one of the most simple, elemental plays in the game is a must, and if you can't get it done, you don’t deserve to be in the playoffs or to win in the playoffs. Tony Romo has been slowly sinking the Cowboys’ ship for weeks with his declining play and abundant turnovers, but mishandling the field goal snap and not being able to recover was the final dagger in a disappointing season for Bill Parcells and the ‘Boys.

- Chart news for music after one week of 2007: despite wearing the fake mustache/fake nose/big plastic glasses disguise, changing address, phone number, email and fax number and filing for a restraining order, we have been unable to keep crappy music from following us into the new year. How do I know that? The year began with a week in which Justin Timberlake, the weasel-voiced former man band star, still with a Top 10 album. Fergie, the skank, synthesized, faux-tough girl whose video features human-sized candy canes and lollipops, has the second ranked single on the charts. And former American Karaoke, er, Idol contestant (she may have won, I don’t know if she did, nor do I care) Fantasia (and by the way, only famous people with actual talent and more of a list of accomplishments than being on some hack reality show are allowed to go with the one name only) is coming out with a second album. I know you get an automatic record deal if you win that stupid show, so you’re guaranteed one album, but handing a second one to any of those losers shows that there are many, many things wrong with this world of ours.

Big hogs, athletes + guns and an Oops! by the Army

- Athletes, guns, shootings and trials. They’re no longer limited to American athletes or American soil, if they ever were. Chicago White Sox shortstop Juan Uribe informed the club that he may miss the entire 2007 because a judge in his native Dominican Republic has ordered his presence at twice monthly court hearings in a shooting case that he’s involved in. Uribe apparently feels he can’t fly to the hearing, fly back and still be able to play for the Sox twice a month, but the team has already said it expects him to be at spring training when it starts in February. Right now I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there will be athlete-gun-incident-outside-of-a-nightclub stories on at least 75 percent of the days this year. We’re off to that kind of start, and things aren't getting any better.

- Tack another one on the “List of Things You Just Can't Apologize For,” that being the Army sending letters to 275 officers killed or severely wounded in action, urging them to re-enlist. Because having military higher ups appear at your door in the middle of the night to inform you that your loved one has been killed in action isn't bad enough, the Army now can't pay enough attention to its communications to prevent those same families from receiving a letter urging their deceased family member to re-enlist. This goes right up there with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines literally losing a passenger on his honeymoon cruise and settling for $1 million and NATO apologizing for killing too many civilians while fighting insurgents in Afghanistan. Sorry, people, but sometimes you just can't say sorry and make it all better, especially in situations like this. Still, it’s a nice thought, for whatever that’s worth……

- Now I know why so many rednecks love their guns…..especially those residing in Georgia. All of you have my blessing to carry your piece with you based on the fact that an 1,100-pound hog was killed by hunter William Coursey in Fayetteville, Ga. Coursey actually loaded the big pig up and took it to a highway truck weighing station to see how much it weighed. First off, how many guys do you need to lift that into the back of your truck? And when they boast about the payload capacity in a truck, why don’t they ever show someone hauling a half-ton hog as opposed to a load of rocks or lumber? Mrs. Coursey had better find as many recipes for pork and bacon as possible and order an industrial sized meat freezer, because I have a feeling this family will be eating that pig for the next couple years. Bacon, pork chops, pork tenderloin, pig’s feet, pork on a stick, the possibilities are endless. And if I ever happen to be traveling through Georgia, I plan to do so with a shotgun in my hands in case that massive hog has an angry brother still lurking around.

- The Hispanic version of People magazine has named Jennifer Lopez to its list of 100 Most Influential People in the Hispanic community. No word on whether J-Lo’s ass made the list as well or if it was included with the rest of her, but that ghetto booty is a power of its own. It’s made her more money than all of her other parts combined, and in most any movie she’s in, 100% of straight guys would be fine with that booty being the only part of Lopez ever shown on screen. And honestly, how nice is it that this woman is focusing on her acting and not continuing the charade that has been her musical career? She has no musical talent other than shaking her ass in music videos, so she can stop pretending and just focus on what she does best. After all, doing so landed her in another Top 100, so it’s all good.

- Whoops! That wasn’t supposed to happen. The organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada may want to find a new engineer for their venues, because the one they used initially designed a roof that collapsed under the weight of some wet, heavy sleet this weekend. Since these will be the Winter Olympics, and it is Canada, I’m going to assume there may be more snow, sleet and inclement weather during the games, so having the roof of the stadium where the opening ceremonies will take place collapse might be a big problem. B.P. Place was empty this time, but when tens of thousands of people pack the place for the Games, you’re going to want to have a sturdy, reliable roof on the place.

Five Friday thoughts

- Two NFL teams finished with three or fewer wins this season. Yet the one that had only two victories, the Oakland Raiders, seem to have more hope for success in the near future as opposed to the team with three wins, the Detroit Lions. Why, you ask? It’s not because the Raiders have the top pick and the Lions the second pick in this April’s draft. No, it’s because when a guy is blatantly incompetent in a management position, the Raiders actually have the sense to fire that individual, while the Lions keep giving the guy more chances. Art Shell was an abominable failure in his second stint as Raiders coach, going 2-14 this year. he looked comatose and mannequin-like most of the time, the same blank expression and motionless visage regardless of the game situation. It was almost as if he were one of those freaky giant puppets at Chuck-E-Cheese and someone forgot to plug him in. But at least the Raiders fired Shell on Thursday, while the Lions are giving their joke of a general manager Matt Millen a seventh season at the helm despite awful draft, bad free agent signings and general incompetence. The Lions will almost certainly botch their #2 pick in the draft, and while the Raiders don’t have a stellar track record, they still have a better shot than the Lions to get it right. Brace yourselves for more years of mediocrity to come, Lions fans…..although by now, you should all be very used to it.

- Vegas has been “the place” to go for gambling, bachelor parties and spring break trips in the past, but recently so many people go to Vegas as there’s been so much emphasis on making it family friendly and cleaning things up that LV has become almost passé to many people, they’ve moved on to the next popular destination. But Vegas is going to have one big thing going for it very soon; Celine Dion is no longer going to be performing there. So unless you’re gay or a middle aged woman, that is great news. Women can no longer drag their husbands, fiancés and boyfriends to the show, featuring some of the most boring, uninteresting music on the face of the earth. I mean, has Dion even done any new material lately? Because ever since her terrible song in the abomination that was Titanic, no one in the music world mentions her or gives a crap what she does. She’s had a five year run in LV, and although that’s kept her from foisting her music on the rest of us, it’s been one more thing in the “con” column for deciding whether Vegas is the right place for a trip. No word on what Caesar’s Palace is going to do with the special theater they built just for Celine’s show, but it couldn’t possibly be a show I’d want to see less than I’d ever wanna see Celine Dion.

- People hate America, and we keep giving them more reasons to do so. We’re intent on competing in the most idiotic, pointless “contests”, dueling one another in feats of sloth, dishonesty and sheer gluttony. We’ve got a dam competitive eating federation, for crying out loud. Now, we have Jason Pisarik a lazy schlub who outlasted other lazy schlubs for the title of Ultimate Couch Potato at an event held at the ESPN Zone in Chicago. Pisarik, who apparently has no friends, no girlfriend, no hobbies and no life, spent 39 hours and 55 minutes watching sports on a couch at the ESPN Zone and won a prize package for his efforts, as well as another decade with no dating prospects. To top it off, dude is an accountant, and if that doesn’t scream athletic, well-rounded stud, then I don’t know what does. Everyone enjoys relaxing and many enjoy watching sports and lying on their couch to do so, but I think 12-13 hours of football, with meal and restroom breaks, on New Year’s Day with all of the college football bowl games is as far as you need to take it. Best of luck with your life, Jason Pisarik, because by the looks of it, you need all the help you can get.

- What’s a fair price to pay for losing a person? I mean, literally losing a human being, as in having them disappear the same way your luggage might on a cross-country flight or a package could get lost in the mail? Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines has answered that question, reaching a $1 million settlement with the wife and family of George Allen Smith IV, a 26-year-old man that vanished from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in the Mediterranean on his frakkin’ honeymoon. That’s one of the all time worst times to vanish, not that there’s a good one. But you’ve just gotten married, you’re looking forward to a new life with your new bride, and poof, you disappear. Personally, based on the amount of the settlement, there had to be some mitigating circumstances, because if you knew for sure that a person’s disappearance was directly attributable to a travel entity’s error, I’d be thinking eight-figure settlement, easy. You really can't replace a person, although Royal Caribbean apparently feels like $1 million is a close approximation.

- Join me in feeling terrible for former MLB slugger and roid user Mark McGwire, who amazingly (or not) appears a lock to miss induction into the Hall of Fame on this year’s ballot. Thankfully, a majority of voters look to be steering clear of being culpable in one of the biggest atrocities in baseball history, voting a guy who took performance enhancing drugs to fuel a dwindling career and thus broke numerous home run records. A player has to be listed on at least 75 percent of ballots cast to get inducted, and an early straw poll showed that only 29 percent of those surveyed would vote for Big Roid, er, Red. Save the “Oh, he never tested positive, you can't prove anything,” line of reasoning. The guy hemmed, hawed and danced around answering all steroid questions in a Congressional hearing, once had a bottle of a steroid precursor in his locker in plain view and added copious amounts of muscle mass late in his career. We all have enough evidence to decide, because this isn't a court of law. We don’t need the smoking gun/syringe, a positive test or anything else. Reading the clues we already have, if you don’t think McGwire took steroids, you’re either on his personal payroll or you’re a member of his immediate family. Heck, even those people probably believe he ‘roided up, they just wouldn’t admit it publicly. Let’s all continue pulling for McGwire’s sustained rejection, year after year, for HOF induction. He’s a borderline candidate based on stats alone, so all the other crap circling around his oversized head makes him a definite no, now and forever.

Some fresh Thursday anger and indignation

- The right guy won this year’s NFL MVP award, period. LaDanian Tomlinson was the best player, the most valuable to his team, whatever criteria you want to use. Some were campaigning for Drew Brees because he had such a good season for a Saints team playing in the still hurricane-ravaged city of New Orleans, and that is flat-out erroneous thinking. Yes, Brees was amazing in recovering from shoulder surgery, he did lead the Saints to the playoffs and he was an important influence in helping New Orleans continue its recovery, but sympathy for the Gulf Coast over being victims of a deadly hurricane should not vault a player from that area up the MVP ballot. Tomlinson set several NFL records this season and was the league’s most valuable player beyond any doubt. I can think of a dozen quarterbacks with whom the Saints would have done just as well, but I can't think of a single running back in the NFL who could have completely approximated what LT brought to the San Diego Chargers this year.

- In a classic case of barking up the wrong tree, University of Florida students have been vociferously lobbying the school’s administration to cancel all classes on Monday and Tuesday in conjunction with Monday night’s college football national title game, where the Gators will play Ohio State. Predictably, the school balked at the request and was only willing to move the add/drop date back four days so that if students didn’t go to class and got too far behind, they had more time to drop. Having gone to college, rather successfully, I might add, let me throw some hints out to UF students: 1) since classes tend to run on a MWF or T-TH setup, if you don’t go on both days, you’re only going to miss one class from each course you are taking, not two, 2) it’s the friggin’ first day of the semester, are you really going to miss that much? At least a few profs just hand out the syllabus, give an overview of the course, tell you to buy the textbook and let you go, and 3) you would be better off going to the profs themselves and telling them that none of you are going to show up, so don’t bother having class. Besides, are you all going to be hammered out of your minds both before and after the game? Kickoff is at 8:30 p.m. Monday, so theoretically you could go to your Monday classes, most of which end by early afternoon, and still have the keg tapped and ready to go before the game. Stop being such a bunch of crybabies, suck it up and do what you need to do. Go to class those two days or don’t go, but stop b*tching about it.

- Want musical equipment, costumes and instruments from a cocaine-using, thug-marrying, bill paying delinquent pop diva? If you’re like me, the answer is no. But if you aren't like me, then perhaps you would be interested in an upcoming auction to be held by a New Jersey storage facility where Whitney Houston stored many of her above-mentioned items. Seems that paying for drugs for herself and ex-husband Bobby Brown, plus bailing him out of jail over and over again, put a drain on Whit’s finances, to the point that she stopped paying Speed of Sound Storage in 2005 and now owes them more than $200.000 in back payments. The amazing thing, though, is that any profits from the auction that go above the amount owed to Speed of Sound go to Houston’s company, which rented the storage space. In other words, once more than $200,000 is brought in, those purchasing items will effectively be funding Houston’s drug habit, which she claims is now history, which of course few actually believe.

- Short and sweet: FOX has canceled The O.C., and I’m pissed. The show has actually gotten better this season, yet the network is pulling the plug and the final episode will air on Feb. 22. Rumors have been bandied about whereby the CW network might pick up the show for next season, but at this point, there’s no substantiation for those rumors. It’s just funny to see so many crappy shows on FOX get to stay, yet this good show goes; a show, I might add, that has been jerked around from one night to another, one time slot to another, and yet still has a loyal following. Ratings have dipped this year, and of course the actual quality of a show has nothing to do with it staying on the air (see Ed, Everwood, etc.), because the networks only care about ratings, which equal advertising dollars. So if the best possible scenario comes to fruition, we’ll be seeing The O.C. on the CW this fall, but if not, we can all say farewell to the show far too soon.

- Oops, sorry we killed so many people. That’s what NATO is saying about its role in the ongoing fight against insurgent groups in Afghanistan, specifically during the 2006 calendar year. NATO admitted Wednesday that it killed too many Afghan civilians in fighting last year against Taliban rebels, but rest assured, world, the organization promises to change that unfortunate reality in 2007. Well, I’m sure the “my bad” defense will help ease the pain of everyone who had a friend or family member killed in the fighting. Would this also work for the U.S. in terms of apologizing that so many Japanese were killed and badly wounded by the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima? Can all overzealous mass killings just be apologized away? Call me crazy, but I just don’t think the world works that way; it never has and it’s not likely to….ever.

- At least one part of Major League Baseball was juiced in 1998, and science has proven that it was….the baseballs. While we can't prove that the players (Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa pictures to be inserted here) were on ‘roids because there was no formal testing (other than looking at the hundred or so pounds of muscle they each added and the increasing size of their heads), scientific research firm Universal Medical Systems, Inc. has done CT scans on the baseball McGwire hit for his 70^th home run and found it to definitively have a synthetic layer added around the core. In other words, it’s a sort of super ball, rubberized ball that had an extra layer of oomph under the cover. Of course, in 1998, baseball was still fighting back from the devastating 1994 strike, so juicing the balls and looking the other way as players juiced up (allegedly) would theoretically boost home runs, scoring and excitement, things that fans tend to love. Question is now, was there anything about baseball in 1998 that wasn’t fake or enhanced? At least tell me that you didn’t spike the ballpark sodas or deliver corked bats to all the players, MLB. Yikes……..

Liar, liar, $40 million contract on fire

- Yesterday I wrote about a contest to find the world’s best liar. Well, I think we’ve found him and he wasn’t even in the contest. Your best liar in the world is……..Nick Saban, head coach of…..hang on, he just took a new job…..head coach of…….nope, left that new job for another one…….ok, for the time being, it looks like he’s landed with…..aww, screw it. Saban is a coaching nomad who lies through his teeth habitually, and his latest jump is from the Miami Dolphins, who he coached to a last place finish, to the University of Alabama. How do we know he’s a liar? He spent weeks outright denying that he’d be Alabama’s next coach, even saying, “I will not be the coach at Alabama.” He said that, then two weeks later, ‘Bama offers him between $30-40 million for eight years and presto, change-o, he’s their new coach! Coaches lie and double talk all the time, so most of us figured he was lying anyhow, but that doesn’t make it any better. What I can't figure out is why Dolphins fans are so pissed. The ‘Fins went 8-8 last year and fell to 6-10 this season and didn’t make the playoffs in either year. Him leaving is good for your team, not bad. It’s akin to having bad girlfriend, one that you’re not happy with and who does just enough that you can't make a slam dunk argument for getting rid of her. Yet things keep getting worse and worse, and finally, it ends. Yeah, it sucks getting dumped, but it’s not like you were happy or the relationship was going great. You can move on to something better and that girlfriend can go on with her crazy act somewhere else.

- News flash: the IRS gets angry when you don’t pay your taxes. Shocking, I know. But apparently that memo never got to former Major League pitcher Rollie Fingers, who was popped by the feds for $1.4 million in unpaid taxes. The Hall of Fame hurler was trying to evade his taxes the way his pitches used to evade the bats of MLB hitters, but he has gone the way of MC Hammer and Wesley Snipes, both of whom were clipped by the IRS for the same crime. Fortunately for Fingers, his $1.4 million is significantly less than the $12 million Snipes is on the hook for, but I’m guessing that Rollie doesn’t exactly have $1.4 million in change under his couch cushions. So for all of you athletes, entertainers and wealthy citizens out there (yes, you included, naked guy Richard Hatch, still trying to gravy train off of your Survivor win), pay your taxes. You can murder people and get away with it (O.J., allegedly), you can drink and drive and get about a dozen second chances, you can even start a war with no real reason or plan (yes, you W.) and not be held accountable, but if you try to skip out on paying your taxes, the feds will find you and they will bring you down.

- Good news. We’ve found out where all of the thin women in America have gone. If you’ve been living in the same country I’ve been in, then you undoubtedly see way too many overweight women (men and children too) and not nearly enough people on the healthy side of the obesity line. Well, apparently many of those thin individuals are in New York, where the city’s transit system is experiencing problems because thin women on crash diets keep fainting or feeling weak on the subways and trains. Five women were treated for such problems in December alone, and such incidents are causing regular delays for travelers. A MTA emergency medical technician summed it up by saying, “You have women trying to get their bodies tight for summer and they won't eat.” Isn't there a healthy balance of some sort, where they could eat, say one or two small meals a day and exercise? And wouldn’t that plan translate to the rest of our country so we wouldn’t have to be bombarded with sights of obscenely fat people and have to put up with them spilling over the confines of their own airplane or stadium seats and into your seating area? You’re telling me there’s nothing we can do about this?

- Things were going so well for the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2006 season. They’d been putting together a solid, consistent effort since training camp, with one player after another stepping up and getting it done. A season that included the league’s toughest schedule still found them in great position at the year’s final weeks came near. But the team fell apart at the end, and the year ended with a stunning disappointment. And no, I’m not talking about the missed field goal and subsequent overtime loss to the Steelers that kept the Bengals out of the playoffs, nor the botched extra point that kept them from tying a game in Denver the previous week. No, I’m referring to the fact that the team had its eighth player arrested more than a month ago, and had several weeks left in the season to reach double digits in arrests for the year, yet they failed. They could have put that record out of reach to the point where it would never even be challenged, yet they couldn’t get it done. Call it a lack of focus, or an infusion of discipline and self-control at the worst possible time, but either way, it’s a staggering blow. For a team that had one guy (Chris Henry) arrested four separate times during the season, a final month with zero arrests is unconscionable. Oh yeah, they also crapped out on the field and should have made the playoffs too.

- How could you not love a job where, no matter how poorly you performed, you just couldn’t get fired? The Seinfeld episode where George tries to get fired from the New York Yankees so he can take a job as scouting director for the Mets summed it up best. George told off the owner, destroyed historic Yankee memorabilia, “streaked” in a flesh-colored body suit during a game, but none of it could get him fired. Ultimately, he tied the Yanks’ most recent World Series trophy to a rope, tethered it to his car and dragged the trophy around the parking lot, destroying the trophy while yelling denigrating remarks about the Yankees into a bull horn. Still, he can't get himself fired…..well, Detroit Lions general manager Matt Millen must be a big Seinfeld fan and a fan of that episode in particular. Millen is a colossal failure, with the team sporting a 24-72 record in his six seasons at the helm (and average of 4-12), finishing last in their division in four of the six seasons. At one point, he drafted wide receivers with the team’s first round draft pick in three consecutive years even though the team had glaring needs at every other position on the roster. Now, one of those receivers isn't even in the NFL, another was inactive for almost the entire season and only one remains with the team, and even he has yet to make a Pro Bowl. Fans have twice staged walkouts during games to protest his reign as GM and “Fire Millen” has been the Lions’ fan mantra for the past three or four years. Yet owner Williams Clay Ford announced that Millen will be back for the 2007-08 season, following a spectacularly bad 3-13 campaign this season. I’m starting to wonder if there’s something, anything, that Millen could do to get fired. Maybe if he lit Ford Field on fire and shot up with heroin on national TV………..even that might not work.

- All of your education problems are solved, South Africa, so you can move on to other, more pressing matters. The Oprah Winfrey Academy for Girls has opened in a small town south of Johannesburg, and Winfrey promises it will be a place for girls from disadvantaged backgrounds to better themselves and hopefully change their country for the better. On a serious note, it’s a good thing to help people, especially those most in need, but when did it become passé to help people in your own country? Can no one adopt an American baby or build a charter school for American kids from disadvantaged backgrounds? And at the dedication ceremony, did Oprah have all the kids stand up and then yell to them, “And you get a school! And you get a school! And you, and you, and you, and you, you all get a school!” Hopefully this works out better for the kids than it did for the audience members she gave cars to, who then had to pay a hefty sales tax and other fees for their “free” cars. Otherwise, they can look forward to pay-to-play sports and having to buy their own textbooks and desks.

- I sincerely wish Pat Robertson would just shut up. It’s people like Pat who give a bad rap to faith and religion in general. They make others who call themselves Christians or people of faith look like whack jobs by association simply because they can't keep their mouths shut or prevent idiotic things from flying out of their pie holes. This time, Robertson says God has told him that a terrorist attack on the U.S. in 2007 will result in massive killing. Rest assured though, that God didn’t specifically tell Robertson that it will be a nuclear attack, although that’s what the good reverend suspects. Nothing like inciting fear of a nuclear attack and claiming God told you about it……….did God also tell you when and where it would happen, or how to prevent it? Call me nutty, Pat, but the God I know doesn’t inform us of nuclear attacks through divine messages. And if you have some magic premonition power through the Lord himself, can we also look forward to you predicting the winner of next year’s World Series or the winning Powerball numbers for the next drawing? Keep these things to yourself, Pat, so that people don’t have as many negative stereotypes and misconceptions about Christianity than they already do.

Auspicious beginning for 2007

- What a terrible way to start off a new year, with news of a pro athlete being senselessly killed in a drive by shooting outside of a nightclub. But when Day Two of that same new year includes another athlete being killed in another fight outside of another nightclub, 2007 starts to look like a pretty crappy year. First, Denver Broncos defensive back Darrent Williams was gunned down inside of a rented limo outside a Denver nightclub on New Year’s Day morning. There was a fight inside the club between members of Williams’ crew and another group of patrons, and when they left, a white SUV pulled up beside Williams’ group’s rented limo and starting firing off rounds, killing Williams and injuring two other people. On January 2, the disturbing trend continued when professional boxer Kemal Kolenovic was killed outside of a Bronx nightclub after a dispute with some other clubbers that centered on ethnicity. The offended party drove his or her SUV up onto the sidewalk and ran over Kolenovic, killing him and making all of us wonder 1) why athletes keep going to clubs when it seems like there’s a high probability that they might get killed or arrested, and 2) how bad our world is really getting. Here’s hoping that we start having days in 2007 when athletes aren’t murdered outside of nightclubs.

- This shouldn’t be surprising when guys are creating giant rubber bands balls and thousands of people are hula-hooping in unison in an attempt to set world records and grab for some publicity, but would someone, anyone, please tell me why the hell we have a World Championship of Liars? Yes, that’s right, more than 300 losers gathered recently in Burlington, Wisconsin to see who could tell the best or biggest lie. What the criteria were, I don’t know, nor do I need to know. But if you want to know some particulars, here they are: some loser was declared the champion, while the other 299 losers, well, lost. They all wasted their time doing something lame in an attempt to get some glory, and now they can all go back to their normal lives and practicing for next year’s contest. Congratulations, idiots, for finding new and increasingly pointless ways to waste your time and energy.

- Residents of New Orleans have to be thrilled as they continue to go about rebuilding their still hurricane-ravaged city to find out that in addition to being a magnet for hurricanes, the Big Easy is also sinking and sliding right into the ocean. Now to be truthful, the sinking part of the equation has long been known, as evidenced by severely potholed streets and wobbly porches and floors in many buildings. But scientists researching the geography of the area now cheerfully report that New Orleans is also sliding laterally into the Gulf, meaning that sooner or later, water is going to be the demise of the city, either via natural disaster or simple geographical realities. What better incentive to rebuild your badly damaged city than the realization that eventually it’s going to slide or sink right into the ocean.

- Reason #53 to avoid flying on United Airlines: it was recently revealed that last fall, United employees, among them several pilots, reported seeing some type of UFO at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. These misguided souls claim the craft was saucer shaped, had no lights and hovered over the terminal for a bit before shooting up through the clouds. The FAA dismissed the claims as a weather phenomenon, but they may be ignoring the real culprit: one too many stops to the airport bar. A quick check of the blood-alcohol content for those same United employees might have shown some interesting numbers. A United supervisor even called the control tower, asking if they had seen a spinning, disc shaped object. What I’m going to want to see, actually, is a sobriety test for all United pilots and a mental health check before I board one of their planes. Whether they’re sauced or just delusional, I don’t want my pilot flipping out because he or she thinks they see a UFO as we prepare for landing. To paraphrase Ron Burgundy, “Hey United employees, you might want to take a break, just stop talking for awhile, champ.”

- Two of the best, most exciting college football games I’ve seen, ever, have come in the past week and both were bowl games that had no bearing on the national title whatsoever. The Boise State win over Oklahoma was breathtaking, an unbelievable twisty, turny thriller that you just couldn’t stop watching, even if it was nearly 1 a.m. on the East Coast. Boise State, disrespected team from the WAC, BCS-crasher that no one felt belonged, rushing out to a 28-10 lead, then seeing Oklahoma rally to tie on a last-minute drive with a two point conversion try twice prolonged by penalty, then having Oklahoma return an interception for a touchdown less than 15 seconds later to go up 35-28…….hang on, almost done…..then to have Boise State win on a hook and lateral play with time running out to tie it, that alone was amazing. But then to have BSU give up a first play TD to Oklahoma in the first overtime, march down and have a former walk-on, wide receiver/running back hybrid throw a fourth down TD pass while their QB split out as a receiver, followed by the Statue of Liberty misdirection play for the winning two-point conversion in a 43-42 win…..it’s still exciting just to write about it, let alone watch it. It’s almost enough to make you forget about the 44-41 Texas Tech win in the Insight Bowl, but that game also is too good to forget. Tech rallied from a 31-point deficit, the biggest rally in any bowl game ever, and won in two overtimes. The collapse by their opponent, the Minnesota Golden Gophers, was enough to cost UM coach Glen Mason his job. What a bowl season, and oh yeah, we’re not even to the national championship game yet.

- Since our society loves projecting blame onto everyone but people who are responsible for their own choices…….researchers at the University of Minnesota have found that…..their football coach sucks. No, kidding, that problem has been addressed already. The researchers claim, actually, to have found that diet articles in magazines lead to eating disorders in teenage girls. No, they’re not referring to the pictures of ultra-thin models in those same magazines, although critics have beaten that blame horse nearly to death as well in trying to assign blame for eating disorders amongst young women. But this study suggests that articles about how to “get the perfect body” and similar headlines can then cause eating disorders and other unhealthy weight loss behavior in girls years down the road. Right, because it can't possibly be that they and their parents have failed to pay attention to and monitor possibly unhealthy eating habits and weight loss behavior. It couldn’t be because peers have teased them about their weight and it couldn’t possibly be because they actually are overweight. It may seem insensitive to be sarcastic about eating disorders; that’s not my beef. They are a real, significant problem. However, trying to assign blame to magazine articles a girl may have read four years ago is a misguided attempt to point the finger at someone else.

Blasting into 2007.......

- I’m sure nearly everyone got at least one Christmas gift that they were really, really excited about. However, I don’t think anyone got quite the gift that Rino Foschi, sporting director of the Italian soccer team Sicilian Serie A side Palermo received. Somebody, most likely a disgruntled fan, sent Foschi a severed goat head as a gift to show their displeasure in a rather bloody manner. When someone hates you enough to send you a severed goat head, you’ve either become a character in a Godfather movie or you have some mentally ill souls out there who are pissed at you. What makes the story even more twisted is that Foschi didn’t call the cops or toss the goat head in the dumpster; dude wrapped it up and put it under the tree as a gift for his wife. Ha, ha, that Rino Foschi, what a joker. I’m sure his wife was thrilled and they’ll laugh about this one for years to come. His final quote on the subject, “It’s not a big deal. Let’s not make a movie out of it.” Sure thing, if receiving a severed goat head in the mail doesn’t bother you, then I guess the rest of us will have to get over it.

- New TV shows almost always build themselves up with trumped-up promos that promise you the moon, after which the show more often than not fails to meet those lofty expectations. It is my sincere hope that this is the case for the new reality show armed & famous, which promises to take “major celebrities” and turn them into real cops. And what gives your show more of a boost in the legitimacy department than having mega-stars like Wee Man, Erik Estrada and Jack Osborne training to become police officers? For the sake of everyone in whatever jurisdiction that these jokers are filming the show in, I sincerely hope that the E-list “stars” on this show aren't anything close to actual officers of the law. Imagine the potential problems if Officer Wee Man made a traffic stop on one of those massive SUVs……….dude wouldn’t even be able reach the door handle. And how could Officer Jack Osborne make a drug bust in good conscience when he’s high on weed and his old man probably has done more drugs in his lifetime than all but 0.0000001% of the world’s population? Points for a somewhat new idea, albeit in the tired, played reality TV genre, but that’s where the good points of this show end.

- A late candidate for parent/guardian of the year for 2006 comes to us from Indianapolis, where a 3-year-old-boy was found playing in traffic on I-465, wearing only a diaper and t-shirt. This tot’s mother is clearly looking to edge out the grandmother at LAX who sent her month-old grandson through the airport X-ray machine in the race for most negligent caretaker of ’06. Motorists were able to corral the boy and care for him until police arrived and were able to find his mother, who was sleeping. She was arrested on charges of child neglect, which shouldn’t be too difficult to prove. Maybe I need to offer a refresher lesson on things you cannot do with your kid or allow them to do: go through an airport X-ray machine, play on a major highway, take a ride in the washing machine, take baths while holding several plugged-in appliances, drink a gallon of rat poison…….do I need to go on, or do you get the point? Look, if you don’t want to take care of kids, don’t have them or let someone else adopt them. Otherwise, keep them off the freeway and out of X-ray machines, k?

- Britain’s recently-enacted liquor laws are apparently not having their desired effect. Honestly, I’d think the effect you’d get would be thousands of American college students changing their spring break plans for Florida to England to take advantage of the laws, put in place in November 2005, that allow bars to serve alcohol 24/7. Somebody is trying to justify the decision to put the new laws into place by saying they thought it would eliminate the rush to drink as much as possible before last call and help to create more of the, “have a glass of wine at lunch or dinner,” café-style culture that exists throughout continental Europe. No less than the chairwoman of the governing Labour Party, Hazel Blears, though, seems to believe that that kind of mentality will never prevail in England. “Maybe it’s our Anglo-Saxon mentality,” she theorized. “We actually enjoy getting drunk.” Now that’s the kind of straightforward, no nonsense talk you want from your political leaders. We enjoy getting drunk…..heck, we can’t even get our leader to admit he screwed up a major war and has no plan for getting us out of it. But back to the issue at hand; the new British laws haven't created the desired “relaxed” drinking atmosphere, but rather they have simply given Brits more time to get drunk. Well done, old chaps, well done.

- Travel alert: for those who have been excluding Slovenia from your European travel plans as a result of the country’s failure to adopt the universal currency of Europe, the euro, you can now put the former Eastern Bloc nation back on your itinerary. As of Jan. 1, the Slovaks will be using the euro as their national currency, becoming the thirteenth country to do so. If you actually enjoy the process of trying to exchange money several times to varying currencies and getting universally screwed in the process, you’ll have to travel somewhere else, because nearly all of Europe is now on board with the euro. Whether there’s much of anything to see in Slovenia is still up for debate, but at least now it’s easier to pay for whatever it is you might find to do if you are unfortunate enough to be vacationing there.

- Black Monday reigns once again in the National Football League. The Monday after the final weekend of the league’s regular season received that moniker because it’s on that day when teams who have experienced disappointing campaigns begin firing their coaches, and today was no exception. The Cardinals, apparently realizing that Denny Green wasn’t who they thought he was (a good coach), fired the erstwhile leader. The thing is, he coached them in all four games of the preseason. Who the hell treats the preseason like it’s bullsh*t? Isn't that why the Cardinals took the field? Now if you want to crown Denny Green, then crown his a**. But he isn't who the Cardinals thought he was, AND THEY LET HIM OFF THE HOOK! Also, the Cardinals fired Jim Mora Jr. after a lackluster 7-9 season, near the end of which he went on a Seattle area radio station talk show and waxed romantic about how much he would love to coach his alma mater, the University of Washington, and said he’d be first in line if the job ever opened up. Never mind that he said he’d bail on the Falcons to do so if need be…….well, the Falcons weren’t pleased and today, owner Arthur Blank axed Mora. Now he’s free to go ahead and pursue that UW job, even if the Huskies already have a coach.