Residual bad effects from the World Series, Heroes talk and blackmail gone bad

With Prison Break off for a week (thanks for nothing, World Series, forcing a postponement of my favorite show even though you’re over), Heroes got my full attention Monday night and somehow managed to pack enough action into one hour to almost make up for missing PB. Among the things on the slate for our heroes was the continuing saga of Ando reading the scrolls sent to him in the hilt of the ancient Japanese sword from his friend Hiro, still back in 1671. Hiro and his new friend, legendary warrior Takezo Kensei, are preparing to attack the camp of White Beard along with Kensei’s girl Yaeko. Inside the camp, they find Yaeko’s father and try to rescue him only to find that he won’t leave until he destroys all of the guns he helped White Beard make. Hiro promises to take care of it, but when he does, in the midst of his getaway a bullet is fired at he and Yaeko and he has to teleport to avoid being hit, thus revealing his power to Yaeko. She realizes that he’s the one who’s been doing all of the amazing things she attributed to Kensei, kisses Hiro and in the process breaks the heart of Kensei, who sees the kiss. Kensei then pretends to forgive Hiro, only to knock him out and turn him over to White Beard. Another favorite hero, Peter Petrelli, is back in 2007 and off to Montreal. He and Kaitlin go to find the scene Peter painted of a street corner and building. They find the building, which looks to be a big empty space filled with old furniture and lots of boxes. Amidst the clutter is a note, taped to a mirror, telling Peter that “we” were right about the company, that the world is in danger. It’s signed by Adam, a person Peter doesn’t remember. It raises the question of who Adam is, a question furthered at company headquarters when Mohinder sees a file with the name Adam Monroe on a folder carried by Bob, the head of the company’s operations. At the time, Mohinder doesn’t have time to look into Adam Monroe further because he’s working with Monica, Micah’s cousin from New Orleans who is in Manhattan having her powers tested by Mohinder. When Bob turns the tables and asks him to inject Monica with a strain of the mysterious virus used to take away people’s powers, Mohinder refuses and the resulting confrontation ends up with Bob apologizing and assigning a partner to Mohinder to make sure this kind of problem doesn’t happen again. The problem is that this partner is the newly-cured Niki, who you have to figure will snap at some point. Monica returns to New Orleans, accompanied by Bob, who gives her an iPod loaded with new skills for her to learn with her muscle mimic ability to replicate anything she sees done. On the international front, Noah Bennett, a.k.a. H.R.G., and the Haitian, on the go in Odessa, Ukraine, where they meet and ultimately kill a Russian man, Ivan, who used to work with H.R.G. at the company. When Ivan refuses to tell H.R.G. where the rest of the Isaac Mendez paintings are that foretell the future, the Haitian begins taking Ivan’s memories one by one to threaten him into giving up the info. When he does, though, H.R.G. shoots him in the head, refusing an offer to return to the company and electing to go it on his own. Ivan warns him that, “You know that by killing me, you’re condemning yourself to hell.” To which H.R.G. cryptically, eerily replies, “I know.” The paintings themselves, located in a warehouse (of course, where else) appear erratic, random and not in a coherent order. Still, you know they’re a big part of the show’s story this season, so I’m sure we’ll be learning more about these paintings in episodes to come. Also on the international front, the trio of Maya, Sylar and Alejandro continued their drive to the U.S. border, making it across under difficult circumstances. Alejandro, wanting to get rid of Sylar, tells Maya they should ditch him but he disagrees, saying Sylar is “a gift from God.” At the border, Sylar talks Maya into driving across and using her powers to kill the border guards who stop their car. She does and they make it past, but when they stop to rest, a condescending Sylar tells Alejandro, who doesn’t speak English and thus can’t understand what’s being said, that he plans to kill both Alejandro and Maya and take their powers once he regains his own ability to rip others’ powers from them. At the least, he promises to use Maya’s powers to meet his own selfish ambitions. On a lighter note, Claire and new boyfriend West have some fun in the episode, exacting revenge on Debbie, the head cheerleader who denied Claire a spot on the squad. At a late night cheerleader gathering at the school, Claire pulls Debbie off to the side, asks for another tryout and when she’s rebuffed, West flies in, grabs Claire and drops her from 50 feet in the air, sending her crashing to the concrete stairs below, apparently dead. Debbie sees this and freaks out, especially when West chases her. Claire recovers, heals and when the police come, they find her in good health and pretending that nothing ever happened. Debbie, on the other hands, gets arrested when the cops find an empty bottle of alcohol nearby and blows a .13 on a breath test. Two AWOL heroes for the episode are Parkman and Nathan, along with the man they’re chasing, Parkman’s dad Maury. That being said, this episode was packed to the gills with action and it was the best of the season so far.

 

- I’m not a horror movie connoisseur, so I’m not the best person to judge Saw IV, but it did rake in a very respectable $32.1 million in its opening weekend this past weekend, so it’s off to a good start. High earnings dot mean it’s a good movie, but clearly the Saw franchise is established enough that a lot of fans want to see it simply because of its name value. Also, this film clearly benefited from a wisely chosen Halloween weekend release, which has to be the absolute best weekend of the year for a horror movie to come out. The movie itself has a twisted, convoluted, confusing plot, with the uber-creepy Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) back despite having supposedly been seen dead at the end of Saw III. We even see his creepy, disturbing autopsy for the first few minutes of this movie. Still, he manages to live on through flashbacks and weird microcassette recordings in which his voice speaks out of the freaky marionette dolls he’s placed in killing rooms throughout previous movies in the series. Characters from previous movies in the series are also woven into the plot of this installment, which muddies the waters even further. The story also tries to explain too many different things and tie up too many loose ends from prior movies, making it difficult to follow. The plot in this one centers on two cops who go missing, with a 90-minute deadline for finding them before they’re killed. Lots of deaths follow in dark, dank rooms with cryptic messages scrawled on the wall, messages such as, “See what I see,” or “Feel what I feel” and “Cherish your life.” What I happen to cherish is non-torture porn movies with good writing, so Saw IV doesn’t score well with me, but you might be a fan….

 

- If you’re going to try to extort millions of dollars from someone in a blackmail scheme, it’s always best to check beforehand to make sure that 1) you’re not a moron, and 2) you’re not attempting to blackmail the highest-profile, most heavily guarded and surveilled family in your entire country. Clearly these rules were not adhered to by two men who were just arrested for attempting to blackmail Britain’s royal family in September. The men claimed to have video of a member of the royal family having sex (hopefully not Queen Elizabeth, that would be disturbing)and evidence of that member of the family giving cocaine to an aide. The two idiot criminals were taken down in a sting operation in which they thought they were meeting with a member of the royal family member’s staff but instead were met by and taken into custody by the police. Well done, tools, clearly you are criminal masterminds who have a lot to offer the world.

 

- Nice crackdown on child labor in sweat shops, Gap. The fashion retailer has announced that it will convene a meeting with all of its Indian suppliers to “forcefully reiterate” its prohibition on child labor after children as young as 10 years old were found working in the sweat shop of a Gap supplier in New Delhi, India. According to the children, they were told that they’d been sold to the sweat shop by their families and couldn’t leave until they had repaid that debt. I have to ask, couldn’t we just promise the kids a 30-minute recess daily, give them extra juice boxes and fruit roll-ups and keep them working? Seriously, though, I don’t think a “forceful reiteration” of your policy is sufficient. Until you promise to immediately and permanently sever ties with any supplier whose sweat shops use child labor, your words will ring hollow and carry little to no weight.

 

-  Most of your constituents probably agree with you, Gover-nator, so just own your remarks to the British version of GQ magazine about marijuana not really being a drug and stop backpedaling. Ah-nold Schwarzenagger, California’s governor and the man with the heaviest Austrian accent since the Von Trapp family, is trying to pass off comments he made about the hippie lettuce to the British GQ as a joke. “It’s not a drug, it’s just a leaf,” he stated. He also told the magazine that he’s never taken drugs even though he’s on record as admitting to using steroids during his bodybuilding days. Clearly, his definition of drugs and whether he’s used them is sketchy and subjective, so maybe he and Bubba Clinton can form some sort of club. You know, a “depends on what your definition of is, is” club, named after the response Bubba gave when being questioned about his sexual escapades with one of the skanks he messed around with. If you’re going to make these kind of comments, Ah-nold, own it or else get smarter and stop saying things like this, your choice.

 

- Never have I hoped that international events aren’t predictive of future events in the United States as I do right now. Cristina Fernandez, the Argentina’s first lady, has been elected the country’s president. Her husband. Nestor Kirchner, is the current presidente, but he will be leaving office and his wife is replacing him. She’s a lawyer and current senator who has been by her husband’s side in his rise from small-state governor to president. Sound familiar? Fernandez may not have the menacing scowl, combative demeanor and angry lesbian haircut, but other than those minor details she sounds very much like a South American version of Hank Clinton. With a substantial lead in exit polls, it appears that Fernandez will have enough of a margin to avoid a runoff election with any of the 13 challengers in the race. She needs 40 percent of the vote with a 10 percent lead over her nearest challenger to avoid that, which she seems to have done. Let’s hope for our sake, America, that we don’t see this same story played out on our soil next fall.

No sponsors for the Golden Gate Bridge, why I hate Belichick and why Fred Thompson is no friend of immigrants

- Elect Fred Thompson as your next president and strike a blow at anyone who doesn’t look or talk like you or isn’t an American citizen. It may sound extreme, but it’s basically the immigration (anti-immigration, rather) platform of Thompson, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Thompson basically wants to persecute illegal immigrants with every resource available and take every measure short of building a 75-foot-high fence around the entire country, wrapping it in razor wire and running 25,000 volts of electricity through that bad boy. That may actually be part of Thompson’s plan, he just hasn’t gotten around to announcing it yet. He wants to double the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, boost the border patrol to at least 25,000 agents, prosecute illegals and their employers (yeah, good waste of tax dollars there) and give illegals virtually no chance of ever becoming citizens. It’s a good thing this idiot has virtually no chance of being elected, because he might be the one candidate who’s actually meaner, angrier and more militant than Sen. Hank Clinton.

- Even if you can’t produce good music, interesting TV or anything else to keep me from calling you the worst innovation in the history of both television and music, you can still help people in this world. Take a lesson from the yahoos over at American Karaoke, whose Idol Gives Back campaign raised $75 million this year, including $30 million which went to six different charities in Africa in the amount of $5 million per charity, one of which is an AIDS prevention organization. Personally, my campaign would be called Give Idol Back, and it would offer the entire American Karaoke franchise and everyone who’s ever been associated with it to any country willing to take it off our hands. I really wish we could donate money to get this show off the air and keep it off the air, and to prevent people like that effeminate, whining waif Clay Aiken from ever making another album, because if that were the case, I and a lot of other fans of actual good music would be 100 percent behind that cause.

- I’m disappointed to hear that AT&T has scaled back plans to blanket all 62 square miles of the city of St. Louis, Mo. (inside city limits) with Wi-Fi signals as part of a new project. An entire city with Wi-Fi signals would have been cool and innovative, expanding the concept from its usual locales like airports and coffee shops and taking it to the masses. Instead, the company will launch a smaller pilot project in downtown St. Louis and see how it goes before deciding whether to take it to a grander scale. The scaled-down version of the project should be up and running by early next year, so keep your eyes and ears open to hear how it turns out. I know I’ll be watching….

- I’ve never felt any urge to watch the FX network’s plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck, mostly because it seems like a gratuitous T&A session with little or no actual effort put into writing, plot strategy or intelligent dialogue. However, I’m willing to make a deal with the network and the show’s producers; if you all can us your Nip/Tuck magic to turn Rosie O’Donnell from the orca-fat, loudmouthed, stupid, fowl, bad-haircut-sporting loser she is into a semi-attractive, non-repulsive human being who I could stand to watch for more than five seconds without throwing up, I promise to be a devoted fan of your show for life and its biggest honk for the rest of my life. You see, O’Fat will be reprising her role on the show as the wealthy Dawn Budge this season, It can’t be a coincidence that her character’s last name is one letter away from being fudge, can it? Nor can it be coincidental that by changing one more letter, in her first name, it would read Down Fudge. To quote on Donald Trump: “Rosie is disgusting, both inside and out. Rosie is a loser.”

- My interest in the NFL is low this year for various reasons, but that hasn’t stopped me from seeing that Patriots coach Bill Belli-jerk is the most classless, arrogant, piece-of-crap a-hole in all of sports and loathing him for it. On the heels of the Spygate scandal in which he openly cheated and showed no remorse, Belli-jerk has developed a weekly habit of absolutely and deliberately humiliating whichever overmatched opponent his team has on its schedule. No game better illustrates this point than Sunday’s contest against the Washington Redskins. The Patriots were routing the ‘Skins, 24-0 at halftime, 38-0 after three quarters and yet there was New England’s first team offense and defense, going full bore to hammer the Redskins into the ground deep into the fourth quarter and keep on pounding them even after it was clear to even Stevie Wonder that the game was over. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady didn’t take a seat on the bench until the middle of the last quarter after his fifth touchdown of the day, this one putting his team up 45-0 after a drive in which they actually had the gall to go for it on fourth down despite being up by more than five touchdowns. First, that’s as classless and bush league as it gets, because if you’re up five touchdowns in the second half, there is no need to purposely embarrass your opponent and make no mistake, that’s exactly what this is. It shows no respect for the game or for your opponent. Second, it’s plain stupid, because you’re risking the health of your starters by playing them in a game you already have won, and as we’ve seen over and over, it only takes one play for a star like Brady to teat his ACL and be done for the year. Normally I would never this, because it’s bush league and no NFL coach would do it, but if I’m the coach of an opposing team and Belli-jerk pulled this kind of crap against my team, I’m ordering my guys to purposely play reckless and dirty and to try to hurt the Patriots’ stars and starters, because that would teach them a lesson and maybe then Belli-jerk would pull them out.

- Thank God that the board controlling the Golden Gate Bridge has more spine and soul than the sellout owners of pro sports franchises (and many colleges) across America. The board has rejected proposals to help finance the bridge’s operating budget with corporate sponsorship deals. You all know of places like Safeco Field in Seattle, Gillette Stadium in New England, Network Associates Coliseum in Oakland, the TD Waterhouse Center in Orlando, etc. The names of these venues sound lame and they are, but they are in place for one reason - $$$$$. Proponents of the sponsorship deals for the Golden Gate Bridge argued that they would raise $3-4 million annually toward the bridge’s $150 million budget and help ease the strain of its projected $81 million deficit for the next five years. The Golden Gate Bridge brought to you by Tostitos……just doesn’t sound right. Props to the board for proving that not everything in America is for sale to the highest bidder.

What to say to W., what A-Rod's opt out says and what will actually help the Tour de France

- I hope this isn’t an indication of how you’re going to be handling the rest of the 2008 Summer Olympics, China. Having Jackie Chan sing the official theme song for the Beijing Olympics is akin to the United States having an aging, past-his-prime action star like Don Johnson (looking for a…..heartbeat….) or David Hasselhoff belt out the Olympic theme for the Games in this country. The song, We Are Ready, doesn’t exactly scream Grammy, plus it raises the question of how ready the Chinese really are and how they got that way. Are you all ready because of that 8-year-old girl who ran more than 2,000 miles across the country, 39 miles per day, to “celebrate” the coming of the Games? Or are you ready because of the copious amounts of hookers that are reportedly going to be on hand for the Olympics? Also, the fact that Chan recorded the entire song in less than three hours in a visit to Beijing doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. He’s not exactly a musical legend like John Lennon, with the game to drop into the studio and hammer out a great song in a few hours. Stick to making bad action movies with Chris Tucker, Jackie, and leave the singing to professionals.

- Joe Francis, I can’t say that I feel at all sorry for you, bro. And that’s not just because you’ve seen more naked college and high school chicks than the rest of the American male population combined and probably had sex with many of those girls. No, I don’t feel sympathy for the founder of the Girls Gone Wild franchise as he sits in a Nevada jail because he should probably have been in jail dozens of times before and he’s gotten off, so eventually he was going to run into legal trouble he couldn’t weasel out of. His undoing is the same as Al Capone’s, the same as Wesley Snipes’…..yup, tax fraud. Francis has been in jail since April, when he was initially jailed for contempt for yelling at attorneys during a mediation hearing in a federal lawsuit brought by women who were underage when Francis’ production company filmed them back in 2003, engaging in all sorts of raunchy activity. That lawsuit was eventually settled, but Francis had his bond revoked on criminal charges related to a 2003 arrest when he was charged with having $700 in cash as well as prescription and anti-anxiety drugs on his person while in the Bay County jail, all of this items being contraband behind bars. Federal officials then dropped in with tax evasion charges of their own and extradited Francis to Nevada, where he now sits awaiting trial. As he waits, he’s waging an impotent, lame campaign for his freedom, claiming that’s he’s being treated like a terrorist (No you’re not, Joe, not unless you’ve been subjected to water boarding, having electrodes strapped to your body, etc.). That’s a bad play, because trying to equate yourself with something like that just pisses people off even more. As part of his campaign, Francis is running ads on various websites showing pictures of him during a 2004 White House visit, which proves….I don’t know, not much. Bottom line for Francis is that he makes $29 million annually from his business ventures, so he can afford to pay his taxes and whatever fine the IRS wants to levy against him. Like I said, Joe, Capone learned it, Snipes learned it; you can commit all sorts of crimes, you can make criminally bad movies, but if you cheat on your taxes, you will go down.

- Make all the cosmetic changes to your event you want, Tour de France officials, just know that those changes don’t mean a damn thing as long as your sport remains as dirty and drug-ridden as it is. Tour officials announced yesterday that the race course will be altered for the first time since 1966 and will not begin with a full road stage instead of the individual time-trial race that had kicked things off for decades. The changes, which will also include less mountain terrain than in the past, are designed to rekindle interest in the race. However, what the Tour really needs to do if it hopes to regain fan interest is to start right now with drug testing every single rider who plans to participate in next year’s race and keep on testing them two or three times a week right up through the end of the race. With Floyd Landis, the Tour’s 2006 champion, making a mockery out of himself and his sport by continuing to fight the ruling that he cheated and must forfeit his title, and with dozens of riders and some entire teams booted from last year’s race due to positive drug tests, a clean race is the only thing that will really make a difference for fans – and even then, cycling is a fringe sport at best.

- Apparently 5 a.m. brawls at Waffle House restaurants maker for good album sales, because Kid Rock’s latest album, Rock N’ Roll Jesus, is currently second on the Billboard album charts. Granted, he’s sharing chart space with other musical luminaries and icons like Colbie Callat (who?) and Rascal Flatts, so it’s not really that noteworthy of an accomplishment. Also on the charts, in the top spot actually, is Bruce Springsteen, proving that is he and will forever be America’s working-class hero. The Boss’ album, Magic, holds down the top spot for now, although when you’ve got Colbie Callat breathing down your neck, you can never feel too secure. Meanwhile, on the New York Times bestseller list, two great books top the list: I Am America (And So Can You!) by satirist, comedian, TV host and South Carolina presidential candidate Stephen Colbert, and Clapton, the autobiography of legendary musician Eric Clapton. Pick one or both up, they’re great reads.

- Thanks, but F-you. That’s the message Alex Rodriguez and his agent, the abrasive and loathsome Scot Boras, are sending to the New York Yankees by exercising A-Rod’s opt-out clause in his contract without even sitting down to negotiate with the Yanks on a new contract or extension of his current deal. A secondary F-you goes out to the rest of baseball by the Rodriguez-Boras team announcing the opt out during the deciding game of the World Series, that shows a total lack of class as well. But with the Yankees prepared to offer him a deal reportedly in the $25-30 million range, A-Rod chose to walk away in search of his ultimate goal in life – more money. His flight is aided by Boras, a greedy, arrogant bastard of an agent who will lie, manipulate and do damn near anything else in search of the almighty dollar. That his biggest client is a total mercenary whose teams always improve once he leaves makes for a perfect match. Yes, the Yankees would have missed the playoffs without him this year, but he did nothing to help them win once they got there, and in the Apple, that’s what really matters. All that said, I still hope A-Rod breaks Bar-roid Bonds’ record, which only proves that Bonds is the most detestable athlete of our generation. But back to A-Fraud: He and Boras have to know, as does everyone else who follows baseball, that no team has ever won a World Series or even come close while paying one player as high of a percentage of the team’s salary dollars as the deal A-Rod wants would equate to. He’s showing that making the most money is what matters most to him, not being a champion. It would actually be fitting for him to sign with the Yankees’ arch nemesis, the Boston Red Sox, because at this point, the Sox have morphed into the Yankees, i.e. winning titles, outspending everyone else, having annoying, arrogant, omni-present fans, etc.). So chase your payday, A-Rod, just realize how little everyone thinks of you as you whore yourself out for a few extra bucks.

- No. Hell no. Those are the only two acceptable responses for Congress to give to W.’s request for $46 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq. With the current cost of the war running a tidy $10 billion per month and the total cost of this debacle at right around $455 billion for four-plus years of fighting, W. doesn’t deserve another dollar to finance his own Vietnam. And save it, Republican honks trying to say that if you oppose throwing more money away on this war that you’re unpatriotic because you’re not supporting our troops. I support our troops, namely I support them coming home right now and getting out of a dangerous place they never should have been to begin with. Don’t take my word, though, listen to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.: “The cost of this war grows every day – in terms of dollars, lives lost and our reputation around the world,” Pelosi stated. “The choice is between the Democrats’ plan for responsible redeployment and the president’s plan to waste another trillion dollars on this war. We must end this war.” Well put, Nancy, well put. Although I do think our national reputation is irrevocably f’d up by this point, but otherwise you’re right on the money. We must end this war…..now.

Amazing Race returns, college football's weekend and more crap from Dave Matthews Band

- So The Amazing Race is back next Sunday, Nov. 4, and I for one am pumped. Yes, the show does tend to cast according to some pre-set, scripted character types, just like The Real World, but it’s still the best reality series around, which is somewhat like being the tallest midget or the best karaoke singer on American Karaoke, i.e. there’s not much competition. Among the personality types we’ll see on display are the estranged parent and child looking to mend their relationship through the race (this time filled by an Asian-American father and daughter), a homosexual team (a pair of lesbian ministers), a pair of sarcastic a-holes who think they’re the smartest, dirtiest, savviest team to ever run the race (a pair of waiters whose male half sounds like he just down five tanks of helium), one or more angry young couples wherein the girl wants the guy to make a commitment and he refuses or the pair claims to be deciding whether to get married or call it quits (these are the teams that spend two-thirds of every episode yelling at each other at the top of their lungs, then hug at the end of each leg of the race and tell each other how much they love one another), and two hot (or in this case, were hot ten years ago) chicks who think they’re going to win using their looks. Yes, it’s poised to be another great season for the show, taking us to the far corners of the earth to experience things we might never see otherwise and for that reason alone, it’s worth watching and I’ll be tuning in Sunday night at 8 p.m.

- College football keeps on bringing the hits, and for one weekend at least, those hits didn’t take out the teams at the top of the BCS poll. Kansas, currently eighth in the poll but moving upward with each win and measure of respect earned, ground out a 19-11 win at Texas A&M, loading yet another bullet into the gun of those (i.e. everyone remotely associated with the A&M program) readying to fire coach Dennis Franchione once yet another disappointing season for the Aggies ends. Another unbeaten, besides Kansas, is Arizona State, which sent floundering Cal to its third straight loss. The Sun Devils fell behind 10-0 early but rallied for a 34-24 win. I honestly think Cal is taking this curse of the No. 2 team a bit far, because every team that has reached that spot in the past four weeks has lost, but Cal losing three straight is taking things to a new low. Speaking of promising seasons gone awry, the Washington Huskies started strong and had Jake Locker, the young quarterback that everyone was drooling over, then reality set in. A loss to #1 Ohio State started a six-game losing streak that continued with a 48-41 home loss to lowly Arizona Saturday. Meanwhile, the best of the one-loss team’s might be in Cal and Washington’s conference – the University of Oregon. Led by QB Dennis Dixon (similar to Vince Young except Dixon can throw worth a crap), the Ducks have lost only to Cal and now are posting ridiculous point totals every single week. Sorry LSU fans, but right now the Ducks look to be flying a whole lot higher than your Tigers. Oh, and thanks to all of the “experts” out there who keep trying to prop up Big Ten also-rans as “real tests” for Ohio State, ignoring the fact that these so-called challengers have built decent records playing a slate of cupcake games and electing to try to hype up games that are clearly not going to be close. Penn State is the latest in this mold, losing 37-17 at home to OSU, following in the footsteps of Purdue and Michigan State. Want to know OSU’s only real tests? Michigan in the last game of the regular season, then their bowl opponent. The list ends there. Elsewhere in the Big Ten, I know it’s not common practice to fire first-year head coaches, but I might make an exception for the University of Minnesota’s Tim Brewster. His team got out to a 10-0 lead at Michigan but then came from ahead to lose 34-10, barely bothering to show up for the final three quarters and dropping to 1-8 on the season, 0-5 in conference play. I know it’ the University of Minnesota, not a real football powerhouse, but you need to do better than losing every conference game no matter what, and UM is on its way to doing just that. And to the University of Georgia and University of Florida, nice act in your game, won 42-30 by UGA but marred by excessive celebration penalties on seemingly every score or big play the entire first quarter. Georgia went to far as to have their entire team run onto the field to celebrate their first TD, which they knew would be a penalty but did because coach Mark Richt actually threatened to give them extra running in practice if they didn’t get a penalty. Florida wasn’t much better, celebrating every big play like they’d just won the lottery. Both of you do realize you’ve lost three games and have no hope of even sniffing the national title game, right? Still, you’re doing better than Nebraska coach Bill Callahan, who looked lost, scared and confused on the sidelines as his team blew a 17-3 fourth-quarter lead at Texas, losing 28-25 and looking very much like a team that has given up on its coach and its season. Recruits who have committed to Nebraska are now withdrawing their commitments and going elsewhere, and I can’t say I blame them looking at this mess. Speaking of messes and spectacles….I know this isn’t big-time football, but how’s about a defensive stop in your game, Weber State and Portland State. One of you should not be defeating the other 73-68, and Weber State did Saturday, not unless the game is played on the hardwood with backboards, rims and nets. Lastly, the next to follow in Cal’s footsteps as former No. 2 teams who can’t stop losing, South Florida has now lost two in a row since making it to the second spot, dropping a 22-15 decision to Connecticut. Beware of falling USF Bulls….

- Georgia is going to be a dirtier, smellier place than usual for the next few weeks. Governor Sonny Perdue has instituted new water conservation laws to help combat the state’s water shortage as it faces its worst drought in decades. The measures ban the washing of state vehicles and limits inmates at state prisons to one quick shower per day. On a side note, can I ask where these inmates are supposed to find time to shiv one another with limited, reduced shower time? Everyone knows the shower is the best place to shiv someone, and now you’re hurrying these guys in and out so they don’t have time to take care of this kind of thing. And no, rural Georgia residents, these new rules don’t absolve you of having to shower or bathe every day – just kidding. I don’t mean any disrespect to my friends in Georgia, you all know I love you. Under Perdue’s orders, other banned activities include the power washing of state buildings and no new landscaping allowed on properties, which will be hard to enforce if only because you can’t patrol every inch of the state making sure that no one does any new landscaping. But perhaps it’s time for everyone in the state to brush up on their rain dancing technique, because at this point anything’s worth a try to get some rain…..

- For once, there’s a bureaucratic, official report I actually want to read, mainly because there’s no freaking way that the conclusions reached by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in this particular investigation are right. The agency investigated the use of Tasers on University of Florida student Andrew Meyer two months ago when Meyer got belligerent and refused to stop asking questions during a speech/Q&A session on the UF campus. All Meyer did was ask questions, yet instead of forcibly removing him from the microphone and escorting him out of the venue, security officers decided that even though five or six of them were pinning Meyer to the ground, they needed to break out their Tasers. Now, in an incredibly self-serving move, the state’s law enforcement department backs up its own? No way. Look, Meyer may be a goofball, he may be known for posting video clips of pranks he does on YouTube, but being verbally belligerent and annoying doesn’t necessitate the use of your Taser. Meyer is an average-sized guy, not some 6’8, 325 lb. behemoth on speed. He only refused to stop asking Kerry questions, he didn’t refuse to stop firing live rounds at him from his AK-47, so the cops should have kept their Tasers holstered.

- Seeing as it often gets above 90 degrees in Miami with insane 100 percent humidity, I’m seriously considering chalking this one up to the heat getting to a person and causing their brain to temporarily short circuit. How else do you explain Jeffrey Weinsier, a TV reporter for Miami’s ABC affiliate WPLG-TV, getting arrested for walking onto the grounds of Miami Central High School with a loaded gun despite repeated warnings from school officials and security not to do so? Weinsier was investigating a story on school violence (ironic, I know), but began carrying a gun several months ago after he began receiving threats because of a story he did on the unsanitary conditions at many local restaurants. Of all the things wrong with Weinsier’s decision making on this one, a few points come to mind. One, when you carry a loaded gun with you onto school property, you’re not investigating school violence, you’re creating it. Two, you’re telling me you cant possibly do your story without your 9mm on your hip? You’re that scared that you believe people are lying in wait for you where, in the restroom or the locker room for gym class, ready to attack you? If you’re looking to jump start your career, this is the wrong way to go about it. Just disarm yourself, leave the gun in the car and go inside to do your report. Every local affiliate has a tool like Jeffrey Weinsier – pushy, instigating, confrontational and abrasive investigative reporter looking to make waves and get under people’s skin to get a rise. Fortunately, most of them, with this exception, are smart enough not to walk into a school packin’ heat.

- You call this a prize? Are you sure that the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy (Army) won this contest, because their alleged reward is a free concert from those excrement-dumping (and excrement -sounding) losers in the Dave Matthews Band. To me, that sounds more like a punishment than a prize. The cadets at the academy allegedly won the contest by sending the best electronic invitations to contest sponsor AT&T and as a result will receive two free shows in November by Dave Matthews Band. They beat out entrants from more than 100 other colleges and universities, possibly because they have guns and weapons and threatened to invade and destroy anyone who beat them out – just kidding, cadets. “Congratulations! We’ll see you in November!” Dave Matthews himself excitedly declared to the cadets on a video message played in the mess hall at West Point. Personally if I’m a cadet, I’m either looking to visit home that weekend, find some other excuse to be off campus or buying the best ear plugs known to man, because the less DMB music you have to hear in your lifetime, the better off you are.

A monkey-induced death, a bad movie weekend and some crazy animal rights activists

- In one of the more bizarre deaths I’ve heard about in a while, New Delhi (India) Deputy Mayor S.S. Bajwa died when he was attacked by wild monkeys, fell from the balcony at his home and suffered fatal head injuries that led to his demise. He was simply out on the balcony, enjoying a nice day in New Delhi, when the Rhesus macaques came after him and he tried to fight them off. These wild monkeys are actually extremely common in the city, with many government buildings, temples and neighborhoods overrun by them. Still, you can’t help but laugh at least a few times when you get a mental picture of Bajwa standing on his balcony, then the monkeys attack and “GAAAAA!!!! AAAAHHHHHHH!!!! GET OFF OF ME, YOU ------ AAAAAAAHHHH!!!” Ok, I think I’ve gotten that out of my system…..moving on……..

- Maybe this coming weekend will be a stronger one at the box office than last one. I’m debating whether it’s a good or bad thing that I’d never heard of either one of last weekend’s top box-office earners prior to reading that they were last weekend’s top box-office earners, and I’m torn. On one hand, I make a point of knowing about what’s going on in the movie industry, but on the other hand, a clichéd vampire blood-and-gore fest like 30 Days of Night and a crappy comedy like Why Did I Get Married? aren’t exactly movies I’d be eager to know about. Even so, 30 Days of Night brought in $16 million to take the No. 1 spot for the weekend, with Why Did I Get Married? second and The Rock’s Disney comedy The Game Plan holding strong at third after several weeks in theaters. Unless I suddenly become a teenage girl and thus enamored with seeing Josh Hartnett on the big screen, I don’t see myself taking any further interest in 30 Days of Night, so this should be the last time I write about this movie.

- What a joyous outing it was for Britney Spears and the two kids unfortunate enough to be the demon spawn of Brit and K-Dirt, riding around in sunny southern California, a court-appointed monitor sitting in the passenger seat. I mean, who doesn’t think back fondly to their childhood memories, times spent with mom and the court-appointed parenting coach? Brit can’t visit her kids without that parenting coach present, at least not until she complies with a court order to clean up and get her life in order. You could look at it is a bad thing that she can’t be alone with her kids until she meets these conditions, but really Brit should be looking at it as a positive. Why? Because at least the judge didn’t include in the conditions for regaining custody that she has to lose those extra 40 lbs. she’s been carrying around, actually make a good album and establish herself as a legitimate musical artist…..

- Now this is what I call keeping your eye on the ball, Miami Dolphins. When you’re sailing along as smoothly as the ‘Fins are at 0-7, chugging along toward the reverse perfect season, it can be tempting to take your eyes off the ball and actually start trying and playing well. But the Dolphins aren’t letting up at all, following up the loss of starting quarterback Trent Green for the season with a severe concussion and the trading of top wide receiver Chris Chambers with the loss of two more key starters in Sunday’s loss to New England. Star running back Ronnie Brown, easily the team’s best player, tore his ACL and is out for the year. Also in that game, starting free safety Renaldo Hill tore the ACL in his right knee and he too will miss the remainder of the season. Hill is the first major personnel loss on the defensive side of the ball, so it’s good to see that it’s not just the offensive unit that is falling apart for Miami. The problems aren’t limited to the team itself; former Dolphin players are absolutely crushing this year’s team publicly, so hopefully that sniping will get into the heads of the current players and get them even less focused on winning football games. Combine all of those factors with the fact that this week the Dolphins are flying all the way to London to play arguably the hottest team in the NFL right now, the New York Giants, and 0-8 is all but assured at this point, which would (cue Bon Jovi) make it halfway there………..to 0-16.

- Ah, I love all you wacky animal rights activists out there. If you’re not out there spreading your “Meat is murder” message and sending snarky “You deserved it,” faxes to supposed animal oppressors like Sigfried and Roy when they’re attacked by their animals, you’re busy with your commando-style liberation missions of various critters and creatures. One such mission just took place in Denmark, where 5,000 minks escaped from a fur farm near the town of Asp during the night. Police suspect that the animals were freed by animal-rights activisits, although they currently have no suspects and are still investigating. The night raid on the farm has set thousands of minks loose in Asp and now the residents are busy trying to capture and get rid of them, although I’m sure the animal rights people who (allegedly) freed the minks couldn’t care less what problems their actions caused, just as long as the minks don’t end up in somebody’s fur coat. When it comes to agitators and troublemakers, there’s no one better at making a mess in the name of their cause than PETA and like-minded groups.

- How does an offensive lineman with any skill at all get cut from one of the worst teams in the NFL, a team whose current offensive line is being hailed as the worst in the league and possibly one of the worst of all time? Former St. Louis Rams offensive tackle Claude Terrell could answer that question: by being arrested for allegedly beating your wife in a suburban Houston hotel room. Terrell was arrested at a motel in the town of Webster early Tuesday morning after his wife called the police, saying he had beaten her. He was then found at a different motel nearby and arrested soon after. The team released him Wednesday and later in the day he made his first court appearance in the case. Claude, my man, based on the way that O-line is playing, if you’d been able to not go Ike Turner on your wife, you would have had a great chance to earn a permanent starting job and start to build a legitimate NFL career. As is, you’re heading to trial on domestic assault charges and with the new player conduct policy in the league, it’s going to be very hard, if not impossible, for any other team to consider picking you, a marginal player, up and giving you another shot.

Alabam football players like textbooks too much, Kid Rock in a Waffle House brawl and To Catch a Predator catches a break

- Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but shouldn't the University of Alabama be pumped that some of its student-athletes are actually taking an interest in their textbooks? Sure, the reason they're getting more textbooks than they're allowed under NCAA rules is probably so they can turn around and sell those extra books for beer money or so they can give them to friends in the class so those friends don't have to buy their own books. But the university launching an investigation into the distribution of textbooks to scholarship athletes in all sports after five UA football players were suspended from the team for violating rules covering free books for course work just seems a little vindictive to me. The investigation is to determine whether any other athletes got more books for classes than they are permitted under NCAA rules. And to think that it only took a few months for Nick Saban to find himself knee-deep in the middle of his first scandal....of course, with Saban he usually only has a few months at any given stop before he starts getting ready to jump ship to his next coaching job. Still, it just strikes an incredibly ironic chord to hear that football players at a major Division 1-A football factory are in trouble not for ignoring their textbooks and classes but rather for getting too many textbooks.

- I can totally understand how Marie Osmond fainted this week on Dancing with the D-LIst Stars. After all, I nearly pass out from sheer boredom and disinterest any time I'm flipping through the channels and stumble across as little as 2-3 seconds of that spectacularly big waste of time, energy and bandwidth. And no, losers who double as fans of this show, I don't care who has been voted off the show this week, who's left, who Osmond's partner is or about your arguments that I shouldn't knock it because dancing is hard and I couldn't do what those people do. Know what? You're right, I can't do it, nor do I want to. But I also can't do brain surgery, engineer a skyscraper, fix a car engine or fly a jumbo jet, but that doesn't mean those things should have their own reality shows. Look, when the host of your show has also had stints as the host of Hollywood Squares (I'll take that fat-ass Bruce Vilanch for the block) and America's Funniest/Lamest Home Videos, suffice it to say that you're not exactly a quality program. Anyone who pays even one cent to call in and vote on any of these totally lame reality competition shows is nearly as big of a loser as the hacks who appear on them. Go away losers, you are a waste of everyone's time.

- Not too many things say white-trash redneck like getting your late-night grub on at the Waffle House, so it's no surprise that earlier this week, poseur rocker Kid Rock and several members of his posse were arrested at an Atlanta-area Waffle House restaurant. Kid and five members of his crew were arrested around 5 a.m. while out for a post-concert meal. An altercation broke out between Kid Rock, a.k.a. Bob Ritchie, and another patron. They exchanged words and things escalated to the point that the two of them went out to the parking lot to fight. At some point during the brawl, the other guy punched a hole through a restaurant window and soon enough, the cops were on the scene. Kid Rock and his five companions spent about 12 hours in jail before they were released. This whole thing got me to thinking, wondering exactly what got this whole mess started. I mean, did this other guy tell Kid Rock that his music sucked? Because if that's what happened, I hate to tell you this, Kid, but the guy is right. Your music is about as subtle, well-crafted and skillful as a truncheon to the back of the head and with about the same listenability. You need to take it easy, not go Fight Club on people at the Waffle House in the early hours of the morning and from now on, just hit up the nice dressing room spread they have for you at the show.

- Chris Hansen and his To Catch a Predator crew can breathe a little easier now that the courts have sided with them. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that law enforcement officers investigating sexual predators can in fact pose as children in order to help them catch their targets. In its decision, the court stated that the First Amendment does not protect a person in such cases. The specific case before the court was the case of Frank Gagliardi, a perv, er, defendant who was convicted of attempting to entice a child into prohibited sexual activity. His lawyers argued that the law required an actual child victim be present for their client to be guilty. I guess not, Frankie, because the court upheld your conviction and now you get to go directly to the bottom of the prison food chain along with guys who abuse women and all of the other child-molesting perverts. Hope you and your new cellmate Tiny are very happy together....

- Have you ever wondered what the biggest cog in the Italian economy is? Is it tourism, with all of the amazing historical and cultural sites to visit? Or maybe it's agriculture, with the country being the home of pasta, pizza, wine and much more....or it's organized crime. Yes, that's right, a new study has found that organized crime, a.k.a. the mafia, makes up the largest segment of the Italian economy. Organized crime brings in about $127 billion (yes, billion with a "b") annually, meaning it makes up 7 percent of the country's gross domestic product. So just what does the mafia do to earn so much money? Well, their earnings come from wholesome, morally-upright activities like extortion, drug trafficking, loan-sharking and prostitution - or as I call them, the four strong pillars of any great economy. If you've got your cash flow from extortion and loan-sharking, you can then afford to buy your blow and weed to do with the nice Italian hooker you arranged to have come to your place on a given night. Now some business lobbies in Italy are waging public campaigns to increase public awareness of the prevalence of organized crime and its supposed corrupting influence on the country, an influence these uptight lobbyists argue keeps foreigners from investing in the Italian economy. C'mon, people, if investors can't get behind loan sharks, drug dealers, extortionists and hookers, who can they get behind? Go with your strengths, be who you are, because clearly Italy has an identity - that of being run and dominated by the mafia and their schemes and plans.

- Speaking of playing to your strengths....props to the Sioux Falls Airport for sticking with an identity that it has tried to shake in the past and instead choosing to embrace that identity. One of Iowa's main airports has in the past fought to have its airport code, the three-letter moniker that goes on baggage tags, flight information and pretty much everything else in every airport, changed from the supposedly unflattering SUX to...well, anything else it could get from the Federal Aviation Administration. In both 1988 and 2002, officials at the Sioux Falls Airport petitioned the FAA to change their code and at one point, the FAA responded with several possible options: GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV or...wait for it....wait for it.....GAY. Yes, GAY, that wouldn't lead to very many jokes....GAY might be one of the four or five options worse than SUX. Thus, SUX elected to keep its code and now they've turned that perceived weakness into a strength. Their now slogan, "FLY SUX," will be printed on hats, t-shirts and other merchandise and will be the tagline for a new campaign. I actually like the idea and quite frankly, if I ever had a single reason or desire to travel to Iowa, SUX is the airport I would choose to fly into. As is, I plan to avoid Iowa like the plague for the rest of my life if possible, but I still like the slogan. Assuming those hats and shirts aren't some ridiculous amount like $20 apiece, I just might order one or both of them. Good job, SUX, maybe you don't actually SUX............

Hope Solo proven right, music done wrong and another stupid Simpson criminal

- So do you still think benching Hope Solo was a good idea, Greg Ryan? The soon-to-be-former coach of the U.S. women’s soccer team found out Monday that his contract will not be renewed when his contract expires at the end of this year, ending a 45-1-9 run as the head of the national team. That might seem like a great record and with the 53-match unbeaten streak that Ryan and his team had working to begin his tenure, you would wonder why he was being dumped….until you realize that he benched the goalie who was between the pipes for almost all of that streak in the biggest game of Ryan’s tenure, the World Cup semifinal against Brazil earlier this year. The 4-0 loss that came when Ryan put Solo on the bench in favor of aging veteran Brianna Scurry drew a lot of attention, more attention than women’s soccer usually gets in a decade, actually, mostly because after the game, Solo had her now-famous rant where she blew up Ryan for sitting her, saying there was no doubt in her mind that it was the wrong decision, that she would have made the saves on the goals Scurry allowed and that Ryan needed to stop living in the past. As harsh as the reaction was for Solo from most directions (not me, I applauded her), I guess U.S. Soccer agrees with her, even if it would never say so publicly. Thing is, they don’t have to say so, because their decision to fire Ryan says it for them. Why else would you fire a coach with only one loss if it wasn’t for the horrifically bad lineup decision he made in that loss, a decision that may have cost his team the match? Congrats on having your comments validated, Hope, and I hope (pun intended) that you get along better with whoever the next coach is.

- This next riot story is brought to you with a bit of regret, because although I love riots, especially ones involving the burning of law enforcement vehicles, this story also has a tragic slant to it. It comes to us from Rawathpora, India, where a local schoolteacher was shot and killed by an army patrol team after a simple dispute outside of the school where he taught. Abdul Rashid Mir was fatally shot by a soldier Saturday and the people of his village didn’t take too kindly to the incident. Hundreds of them took to the streets and they did so with bad intentions. The riot led to the burning and destruction of several police vehicles and the injuring of some 30 police officers, which I would have to qualify as a full-scale riot. I salute the villagers in Rawathpora for their enthusiasm and outrage, taking action against those who so senselessly killed one of their own in such brutal fashion. And no, they shouldn’t have waited for the legal system to address the matter, because that just wasn’t going to happen. No way does anyone in a position of authority take the side of those villagers and they knew it, so they rioted. Now, their cause will get some attention and maybe there will be some sort of investigation or scrutiny beyond the cursory glance from authorities it would have received otherwise. Well done riot and a great cause, two thumbs up to the villagers of Rawathpora.

- No f’ing way. That’s what I kept repeating to myself after hearing that the vapid, annoying waif Heidi Montag, she of the tired MTV reality series The Hills, is releasing an album. Predictably, it’s a heavily produced, sugary-sweet pop album, a la Hilary Duff or Britney Spears. What someone needs to do is to tell Montag, Paris Hilton and anyone else like them that being famous or quasi-famous doesn’t mean that you should be able to indulge your long-harbored ambitions to pursue a music career. Every kid wants to be a famous musician at some point, but most of us should never get the chance because we don’t have the talent and Montag is one of those without the talent. Let’s put it this way: if you wouldn’t have been given a recording contract if you were living in Topeka, Kan. and making $25,000 a year in some average job instead of living in L.A. and either rich and famous or married to someone rich and famous, then you shouldn’t get to make an album simply because you are rich and have the financing to make it happen. Having the money to do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for you to do. Montag, who premiered her piece-of-crap single on the exact right place, the radio show of teeth-bleaching, tip-frosting, man-blouse wearing, effeminate loser Ryan Suck-crest, sounds like a 13-year-old girl singing into her hairbrush in her bedroom mirror, and not a talented 13-year-old. Plus, she’s got her tool of a boyfriend, Spencer, as her manager, and if this guy is as big an idiot and ass hat as he appears, this should end verrrrrry well for both of them. I find it hard to believe that he’s not as stupid as he comes off, so let’s just go ahead and assume that this whole musical career for Montag is just some sick practical joke and that it will be over soon when this album sells all of four copies.

- What is it with dumb criminals with the last name Simpson writing books are crimes they (allegedly) committed? Former gang member Colton Simpson has been sentenced to 126 years in prison in a Riverside, Calif. court after being convicted for a jewelry heist eerily similar to one he described in his memoirs. Simpson, no relation to double-murdered (allegedly) and memorabilia thief/burglar O.J. Simpson but making a weirdly similar mistake to the Juice (yes, you’re still the worst guy ever, Juice), declined to speak at his sentencing hearing. Hey Colton, the optimal time to keep your mouth shut was actually back before you wrote your memoirs and sketched out the details of a jewelry heist you committed but had never been prosecuted for. That’s when you should have kept quiet, because if you’d kept your words to yourself back then, you wouldn’t be set to spend the rest of your life plus about 75 additional years behind bars. As a former gang member you probably aren’t the smartest guy around, but even you should have been able to figure out that publishing a book with intricate details of a crime you thought you got away with was a bad idea.

- Thanks for nothing, government of Myanmar. The county’s ruling military junta has oh-so-magnanimously lifted the ban on public gatherings of more than five people and removed the 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for his citizens, this on the heels of an equally hollow gesture in restoring partial public Internet access. These three actions have been described as “cosmetic” by the White House and although it pains me to say this when it comes to anything coming from the White House these days, I agree. They’re empty gestures from a government that clearly feels it has broken the resistance movement and has a firm grasp on the control of its nation. The soldiers who had been patrolling the streets of Yangon have been removed, some of the activists who were detained or arrested during the riots and protest marches when this whole upheaval began have been released and Gen. Than Shwe and his administration are clearly feeling pretty good about themselves. I, for one, hope that they’re dead wrong and that the pro-democracy forces are simply waiting for the right time to strike again. Maybe it’s time for the country’s Buddhist monks to step up again and start somethin’……

Bill Maher doesn't tase, the ozone hole doesn't get bigger and why London is the wrong place for the NFL to go

- Props to Bill Maher for showing more tact and restraint in removing a disruptive protestor from his show than security at the University of Florida showed last month in dealing with the student who became only slightly belligerent in asking questions during a John Kerry speech. While UF security came with six or seven guards and used a Taser (“Don’t tase me bro, don’t tase me!”) to subdue a single knucklehead that one guard could have restrained sans Taser, Maher and security guards from his show showed much better strategy in dealing with a rowdy protestor who held up a smuggled-in sign proclaiming “9/11 is a cover-up fraud” and shouted out similar comments during a panel discussion about science. Maher helped security escort the man from the studio, with the incident shown live on the East Coast and unedited in its taped version on the West Coast. There was minor resistance from this tool, but no Tasers were broken out and there were no yelps of pain and hundreds of volts of electricity shot through the body of a man who was already on the ground and in the custody of multiple security officers. Classy show you run there on Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill Maher, classy show indeed.

- Happy days are here for Comedy Central, home of the best fake news shows in the world. Last week, satirist and host of The Colbert Report Stephen Colbert announced that he’ll run in the presidential primary in his home state of South Carolina. The announcement was the capper on a running joke on the show about the coyness and beat-around-the-bush nature of many candidates in this current race when it comes to announcing whether or not they plan to run for president. Now comes news that Jon Stewart host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the show where Colbert got his start as a fake news correspondent, has signed a two-year contract extension that will keep him on the air until at least 2010. Also, Comedy Central has created a stand-alone website for the show that will feature video clips from every episode Stewart has hosted dating back to his debut in 1999. You can visit www.thedailyshow.com and see for yourself how the fake news business has changed over the past eight years or so, it’s truly amazing to see………..

- Do you want the good news or the bad news for the world’s environmental system? Heck, who am I kidding, it’s pretty much all bad news for the environment nowadays, it’s just a matter of what degree of bad-ness. This would fall under the heading of lower on the bad-ness scale, as the Antarctic ozone hole has shrunk back to its average size, reaching a maximum size of 9.7 million square miles in September, down from its peak size of 11.5 million square miles last year. This news should fly well in the White House….well, that is if W. and his stool pigeons even admit that a hole in the ozone layer exists at all. It’s a slippery slope when you refuse to admit that global warming exists, because then you get into the habit of denying all sorts of clearly existing environmental phenomena that everyone else in the world believe in.

- London Calling….and the NFL should have let it go to voice mail and then deleted the message. That brief homage to legendary punk rockers The Clash notwithstanding, the NFL’s decision to hold a regular season game in jolly old England is questionable at best and a dumb decision no matter what. The game is next Sunday, with the New York Giants facing the team surging toward my dream of a reverse perfect season (0-16). I know that the NFL wants to mimic the NBA in expanding its game globally and in gaining fans around the world, but has anyone been paying attention to that whole NFL Europa folding deal? The league tried to ram American football down the throats of Euros for nearly two decades and earlier this year was finally forced to admit that the experiment wasn’t working. I realize that NFL Europe, as it was also called, was the lower echelon of American football, a developmental league with B-list talent, but I don’t think that’s the main reason Euros rejected it. The sport simply does not have a base in Europe like it does in America because it’s not played from youth on up there and it’s the same dynamic that soccer has here in America, only in reverse. Soccer will never catch on here as a major sport, just as American football will never be huge in Europe. But you have the Giants and Dolphins in Week 8, smack dab in the middle of the season, hopping on a plane to fly halfway across the world to play a game in London. The Giants are 5-2 and a playoff contender, while the Dolphins are chasing that reverse perfecto that is my dream season. Can’t the NFL see that the ‘Fins have found a comfort zone at home, where they have developed a routine that allows them to show up, lose games and not even break a sweat (which is saying something in Miami)? One game in London isn’t going to create millions of new NFL fans in Europe, and if the league is hoping this is a prelude to eventually having a team in Europe, they need to sack that idea immediately, because as bad of an idea as this game is, having a Euro team is a worse one. No, the time differential isn’t an issue because with London five hours ahead, the game can begin at 6 p.m. local time and still be a 1 p.m. kickoff here in the States, but that’s about the only part of this whole mess that isn’t a terrible idea. But hey, it won’t be the worst idea for an international game that the NFL has had for too long, because within the next 2-3 years, a game will be played in China. Great thinking NFL, just make sure to not bring any lead-paint laden toys back with you when you send two teams to the world’s largest Communist nation in 2009 or 2010, and keep up the stellar planning and scheduling, idiots…..

- Never a good sign when your government decides that it needs to borrow ideas and governing strategies from its Communist days. Yet that’s what Russian citizens are facing with the prices of food product and other important items skyrocketing and parliamentary and presidential elections looming. With the prices of items like diary products (up 9.4 percent) and cooking oil (up 13 percent) going up in disturbingly quick fashion, the Russian government has hearkened back to the 1970s and 1980s be slamming price control on staple items and targeting what it says is widespread corruption in the business world due to sleazy middlemen who are driving up the prices of these products. There is no shortage of food, as there was mid-20th century when store shelves were nearly bare and organized crime controlled much of the flow of good and services, but with the sky-high prices on basic necessities, many Russians are finding it difficult to survive. With parliamentary elections set for Dec. 2 and the vote for the country’s next president three months later, the government faces the challenge of solving this problem or seeing the voters make their voice heard by ushering in new leadership, preferably one that won't continue steering them back in the direction of Communism.

Heroes struggles, Prison Break thrives and Sam Brownback (who) is out of the presidential race....whatever

- Sorry to hear that you’ve dropped out of the 2008 presidential race, Republican Sen. Sam Brownback…..at least I might be if I knew you were in the race in the first place. With about 475 candidates vying for the nominations of both parties, it was nigh impossible to keep track of all the yahoos in the race, especially when those yahoos didn’t have any money or any real support. If an irrelevant presidential candidate drops out of the race and no one is there to hear it, does it matter? “My yellow brick road just came short of the White House this time,” a disappointed Brownback announced. This time and any other time you try to run for president, Sammy. When your name is consistently omitted from any serious talk about the race you’re your party’s nomination no one wants you in their debates or forums, your hopes to win are less than zero. When those factors are compounded by a near-total lack of financial support, you might as well go ahead and get back to your work in the Senate. You know, things like bickering with W., passing lots of bills he promises to veto, churning out lots of pork-barrel legislation, wasting taxpayer dollars, that sort of thing. Get back to that, promise never to run for president again and we can all agree to forget that this debacle ever happened.

- We’re going to the perimeter fence, then we’re going to the tarmac, and we’re going to the main terminal, and on to baggage claim and THEN WE’RE GONNA TAKE BACK THE AIRPORT…..HEEEEYAAAAAHHHH!!!! Sorry, I had a bit of a Howard Dean moment there. Nonetheless, the residents of the Santa Cruz province in Bolivia have done just that, seizing control of the Viru Viru Airport, located in their province, from troops sent in the previous day by President Evo Morales. This follows a protest Thursday in which demonstrators blocked an American Airlines plane on the runway, forcing police to break out the tear gas to disperse the crowd. On Friday, those demonstrators were back en masse, armed with clubs and waving provincial flags, to take back control of the airport. The funny thing is that this is the country’s wealthiest province, yet these rich people aren’t about a little social dissidence and clashes with The Man. The seizure of the airport was seen as a major victory for the leaders of the Santa Cruz province in their fight for greater autonomy from Bolivia’s socialist central government. If I were planning on flying into the Viru Viru Airport ever I might have a small issue with this situation, but seeing as my Bolivian travel plans are a solid few years away, carry on, rioters and airport seizers, keep sticking it to The Man.

- You raise gas prices high enough, this is what you get. A tanker truck containing 7,100 gallons of diesel fuel was stolen at gunpoint from a city fuel depot in Baltimore early Friday. The tanker was found later the same day in nearby Washington, D.C., but with prices creeping up to $3.00 per gallon or more in nearly every state, you can't be too surprised when people start hijacking fuel trucks, whether it’s to get gas for themselves or in the hope of pawning that fuel off on others to get a piece of the fuel-gouging pie for themselves. Still, this truck-jacking wasn’t that much worse of an idea than that moronic Internet-led “protest” that encouraged everyone to cripple the major gas companies a few months ago by boycotting gas stations on a specific day.

- She makes bad Spanish-language albums, she produces terrible movies, but is that enough for Jennifer Lopez? No, she feels the need to come back with an atrocious album in English, the aptly-titled Brave. I say it’s aptly titled because to put out an album this abysmal and do it with a straight face requires a ton of intestinal fortitude. The album contains the same predictable, over-produced, synthesized, vocally and lyrically-weak garbage you can find on any album Lopez has ever produced. Lyrical gems such as, “Heartbreaks are overrated; Stay together, that’s the new trend,” show…..um, nothing. Thanks for the insight into what the newest trend is, J. As long as you continue to combine two of the absolute worst genres of music known to man, pop and dance, and do so with vocal abilities somewhere in between those of a duck being strangled and Carl Lewis singing the National Anthem, my trend will be to stay as far away from any project you’re involved in as possible. Maybe it’s self-defense, maybe it’s just this wacky preference for music and movies that don’t blow, but if J-Lo’s name is on it, I’m keeping my distance.

- Transitioning to a musician who actually has musical talent, guitarist/singer/songwriter Eric Clapton, he of the many solo albums and formerly of bands like Creem and Derek and the Dominoes, has released his autobiography and if you’re a music fan or specifically a Clapton fan, it’s an interesting read. One of the book’s major subjects is Clapton’s controversial romance with Pattie Boyd, a woman Clapton pursued even though she was the wife of his good friend George Harrison. Clapton’s version of their relationship in Clapton: The Autobiography stands in direct contradiction to many details of the relationship that Boyd spelled out in her book Wonderful Tonight. The book also spends time on Clapton’s many musical endeavors, including the aforementioned bands, as well as the Yardbirds and his solo work. It’s the life and times of a man who is considered by most to be one of the top five guitarists in the world, and although much of his music is a bit too mellow and laid back for my tastes, there’s no denying Eric Clapton’s immense talent with a guitar in his hands. Give this book a read if you enjoy reading about the lives of great musicians and are concerned with more than just what’s on the radio when it comes to those musicians.

- Great comeback by Allan Houston. The former-NBA-star-turned-TV-analyst decided that at age 36, he wanted to make a comeback in the Association and so he began seriously working out towards the end of last season with the goal of making a roster this coming season. He settled on one of his former teams, the New York Knicks, as the place for him and headed to training camp earlier this month. Now, before the exhibition season even hits the halfway point, Houston has called it quits again. Why he thought that the chronic knee pain that caused him to retire initially would have magically disappeared just because he hadn’t played competitively for a few years, I don’t know. How he thought he was going to be better able to compete with younger, stronger, faster players that he couldn’t compete with when he retired several years back, I have no idea. His on again/off again comeback doesn’t really hurt anyone because it’s not as if the Knicks were counting on him to play a vital role for them or even to be a serious contributor off the bench. They’re not out any money and because Houston stepped away of his own accord, coach Isaiah “The Sexual Harasser” Thomas and the team’s front office don’t face any backlash they would have gotten if they had cut a player who was among their franchise’s most popular during his time in New York. Guess A. Houston will have to get his kicks from playing rec league ball from now on…..

- The pressure is ratcheting up on Prison Break, while the second season of Heroes is struggling and wandering a bit to this point. On PB, a mysterious new prison arrived Monday night, a Brit who seems to know James Whistler but whom Whistler pretends not to know when the man confronts him with Michael Scofield and Mahone nearby. This new prisoner arrives right as Michael and Whistler are preparing to execute their escape plan, with the Company’s deadline for getting out of SONA now less than a day away. Michael decides that the escape, ironically, has to be done during the day because of the presence of military jeeps randomly patrolling around the perimeter of the prison during the night. However, during reconnaissance work for the escape, a guard spots Michael watching him through the lens of half of a pair of binoculars that Michael broke in two so he and Whistler could each have something to scout the guards with as they kept watch atop the guard towers on the fence around the prison. This causes the guards to storm into SONA, search for the offending item and put a lock on the door of Michael’s cell, throwing a major wrench into the escape plan. That escape plan also includes sending out an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) to jam the TV of one of the guards, distracting him so he won't see Scofield, Whistler and possibly Mahone escape. The other guard, Michael believes, will be distracted by the glare of the sun that hits him at the same time, 3:13, each afternoon and causes him to turn his head in the other direction for six minutes. Caught up in the mini-raid when the guards enter the prison is T-Bag, who Lechero charges with hiding the mistress/hooker who visits the prison regularly to provide her, um, services to Lechero. In hiding the woman in a closet as the guards search the prison, there are clearly sparks between T-Bag and the woman, but the question is whether T-Bag is dumb and daring enough to ever try anything with Lechero’s woman. On the outside of the prison walls, Lincoln and Whistler’s girlfriend, Sofia, are busy with their end of the plan, with the Company breathing down their necks. They purchase some items from a dive shop on the coast and try to drive close to SONA on a jungle road to do some recon of their own, but military guards stop them and angrily tell them to turn around. This leads them to the beach, where Linc buries a cooler he bought from the surf shop and something inside of it, what he calls their getaway vehicle. My guess is that it’s a raft, but with this show you never know. Orbiting around the goings on for now is Sucre, who has managed to get himself caught up with a skeezy criminal who approaches him after learning that he’s the new gravedigger at SONA and asks him to continue the arrangement the man had with Sucre’s predecessor of smuggling items into the prison. Sucre gives in and agrees ot take $5,000 for the first smuggle, then realizes that this isn’t a one-time deal. He keeps doing it, which causes some trouble with his superiors and you can be sure it will cause a lot more trouble in the shows ahead, maybe even getting him fired and preventing him from doing his part in the escape plan or holding it up some other way. The impending deadline from the Company has definitely ramped up the intensity in recent episodes, and the result has been one great show after another. The same can’t be said for Heroes, which is struggling a bit in its second season. Keep in mind that the show is still so much better than most anything else on TV that even when it’s struggling, it’s still way better than other shows, save a select few. But last night’s episode was a prime example of the show’s problems this season. Kristen Bell was supposed to make her big debut as a prickly, spoiled brat of a hero searching for Peter Petrelli, but her debut was a dud and it really wasn’t her fault. Her screen time was so limited that she had no chance to make an impact. She can shoot electrical charges from her hands and uses the power to kill Kaitlin’s brother when he won't tell her where Peter is, but a call from Bell’s character’s father, someone with the Company, beckons her home when her murderous activity is revealed. Peter was also supposed to be a prominent part of this week’s show, but his screen time was also far too limited. Aside from a scene or two making out with Kaitlin, it took until the end of the episode for P. Petrelli to get into the show. He finally opened the box containing his personal items and found nothing that really helped, just a passport telling him his real name, a plane ticket to Montreal and a picture with his brother Nathan, who he doesn’t recognize. It’s at this point that the trance-like painting ability he inherited from Isaac Mendez surfaces and he paints a weird picture of a building and street corner in Montreal while hiding from Bell’s character in Kaitlin’s flat. Across the pond, as the Brits say, in New York, Molly Walker remains in a coma and Mohinder, out of options, takes her to the Company for help despite the protestations of H.R.G., on a trip with the Haitian. Matt Parkman is AWOL from New York as Molly is taken in, because he and Nathan Petrelli have gone to Philadelphia to confront Parkman’s father, a.k.a. The Nightmare Man, whom Molly located last week. The elder Parkman, clearly cagey and in possession of the same power as his son, reading minds, only his power has graduated to a whole other level, tricks his son and Nathan, promising to tell them what he knows about the photo featuring the original 12 heroes and who is hunting them, then trapping both Matt and Nathan inside their own worst nightmare and escaping the apartment. Both Matt and Parkman are able to escape their nightmares, but find only an empty apartment and are about to leave when they discover another piece of the photograph in question with the same bizarre symbol painted on it that was on the pictures sent to Takito Nakamura and Angela Petrelli. This picture is of Bob, the man who hired Mohinder into the Company and is now running its main lab. Parkman’s father is apparently headed to kill Bob, but it can't be that clear cut, can it? Speaking of Mohinder, he’s on his way to New Orleans to a place that further highlights a big problem with this season of Heroes. He’s there to visit Monica, cousin of Micah, who is starting to realize her powers as a “muscle mimic” thanks to Micah. This is a problem because this episode devoted substantial time to Monica, still a peripheral and not-that-interesting character, and barely showed Hiro Nakamura (still in 1671, helping Takezo Kensei and Yaeko, preparing to fight the legendary White Beard and his army and sending messages to the future to his friend Ando). With Hiro and Peter getting minimal screen time and Sylar, Claire and other prominent parts of the show not even in this episode, we spend major time seeing Monica learn to play double Dutch, learning martial arts moves from an old movie on TV and learning how to play the piano from Micah. It was absolutely the weakest episode so far this season and the show clearly needs to find a balance where more characters, especially the prominent ones, are on screen more often. The episode ends with Peter saying he can't hide anymore, so what that means for next week, who knows. I’d like to think it means he’ll be a main part of the episode, but as we’ve just learned this week, that’s no sure thing. Tune in next Monday and see for yourself…..

Philly screws the Boy Scouts, the Dolphins can make my dreams come true and the FBI wants to talk to D. Copperfield

- A very nice “screw you” from the city of Philadelphia to the Boy Scouts, with the city forcing the organization to pay what is deemed a fair-market value of $200,000 annual rent instead of the $1 a year the group had been paying. The decision is based on the Boy Scouts’ refusal to allow openly-gay scouts, causing city officials to say that they cannot legally rent taxpayer-owned property for such a minimal sum to a private organization that discriminates. Yes, for having principles and being willing to stand behind them no matter what, you, non-profit organization designed to better the lives of thousands of boys across the country, can see your rent hiked to $200,000 a year. Well done, city of Philadelphia, hiding behind politically-correct BS and using it to squeeze more money out of a non-profit group into your own coffers.

- The Miami Dolphins set an NFL record in 1972 by going 17-0, winning the Super Bowl and recording the last perfect season in NFL history. The 2007 edition of the Fightin’ Porpoises is poised to run the table as well…..in the other direction and I couldn’t be more excited about it. With a 49-28 loss to New England Sunday that was nowhere near as close at the final score would indicate, the ‘Fins dropped to 0-7 and showed that they clearly have what it takes to go 0-16. Unlike previous teams that have dangled the carrot of an 0-fer only to snatch it away at the last possible moment, the 2007 Dolphins have the right combination of qualities to make it happen. They lost their starting quarterback for the season to injury last week and this week their star running back went out with an injury as well. They have an aging, crappy defense that can’t stop anyone and an impotent, lackluster offense that can’t score enough points to compensate for the porous defense. They have broken-down, over-the-hill veterans and raw young players who aren’t in stride yet, with a bevy of underachievers to boot. They have the one of the two best teams in football, New England, in their division, which is two guaranteed losses right there. Their NFC crossover division is the NFC East, which produced three playoff teams last season, meaning that should be four more losses for Miami right there. Yes, they have everything they need to go 0-16, including a rookie head coach who already looks thoroughly overmatched. I should also point out that the St. Louis Rams are 0-7 just like Miami, but I have a bad feeling that the Rams have just enough talent and experience that when their key players get healthy, they’ll win a couple of games. But the Dolphins, they have the look of a team that can go wire to wire for the reverse perfect season.

- There’s always been an air of mystery around David Copperfield, and not just because of the way he used former girlfriend Claudia Schiffer to make questions about his sexuality disappear. No, the magician who was the forerunner to Criss Angel and others like him has always been an odd cat and an object of intrigue for many, but that many has grown to include the FBI, which doesn’t bode well for Copperfield. Agents were seen snooping around a warehouse he keeps in Las Vegas, a facility Copperfield has dubbed the International Museum & Library of the Conjuring Arts. In other words, he stores his fake collapsible swords, trick coffins, magic disappearing chambers and other stuff there. The FBI isn't saying much about why they were searching at the facility, only that the search is related to an ongoing case in Seattle. “I can say that there was investigative activity yesterday and yesterday evening in Las Vegas,” FBI agent Robbie Burroughs said Thursday. He declined to comment on the specifics of the “investigative activity,” but usually the FBI doesn’t waste that many men and that much time looking into things that aren’t a big deal. Copperfield may want to pull a disappearing act for a while, because the feds have also contacted him and expressed a desire to talk to him about the case. He has to have enough money stashed away to disappear, maybe even enough to pull another supermodel girlfriend. Hit the road, D. Copperfield, don’t want too long…..

- I don’t want to belabor the point because it’s depressing enough as is, but what a colossal, team-wide choke job by the Cleveland Indians. Up 3-1 in the American League Championship Series against Boston, the Tribe not only choked away the series, they barely bothered to show up at all for any of the final three games. Shoddy pitching, atrocious hitting and subpar defense led to three routs for Boston. culminating with Sunday night’s Game 7 win. I literally may stab anyone who tries to defend the Indians as anything other than colossal chokers right in the temple with a rusty ice pick. This season is not a success or a moral victory because they nearly made the World Series. It’s a unanimous failure because they had three chances to punch their ticket to the Fall Classic and they flamed in horrific fashion. Their two supposed ace pitchers were God-awful, with Fausto Carmona not even able to make it out of the third inning in Game 6. What a choke job, what a disappointment. You all should be thoroughly disappointed in yourselves and not the least bit proud of your season, Indians, because what you did in C-H-O-K-I-N-G away this series all abut invalidates everything you did prior to the ALCS. You all have depressed me even more than my pathetic Chicago Cubs and their lackluster playoff effort in getting swept by Arizona. At least the Cubs didn’t give any false pretenses of winning the series only to choke it away. Good riddance, 2007 Indians, you sicken me thoroughly.

- It’s been said that you should never cry at work. Likewise, you should never miss a day of work after suffering an emotional breakdown on national TV due to a dog kennel repossessing a puppy that you had given to your hairdresser’s family. Yet there’s Ellen Degeneres, canceling shows she was supposed to tape on Thursday, shows that would air Friday and Monday, but as a spokesman for Telepictures Productions said, “It’s been a long week and a tough week and we decided to take a long weekend and be back on Tuesday.” Not that I or anyone else with any sort of viewing standards watches that crap-hole of a show, but unless a loved one dies or is seriously ill or you yourself are in a similar state, you show up and you churn out those crap-tacular episodes of your talk show, E. Your little crying session inspired hundreds of your idiot viewers to phone and email in death and arson threats to the kennel, the least you could do it go on the air and tell everyone to stop harassing those kennel owners. Now if you want to scrap your show altogether and agree never to appear on TV or in movies for any reason ever again, I’m down with that, but not with your staying home for a day because your emotional boo-boos are just too much for you to handle.

- In the least surprising pot-related arrest since Willie Nelson’s tour bus was pulled over last year, British pop tart and gravelly-voiced crooner Amy Winehouse, she of the Bottom 5 Song of the Year-worthy Rehab, has been arrested and released in Bergen, Norway, along with two other members of her traveling party on marijuana-possession charges. One of those arrested with Winehouse was husband Blake Fielder-Civil, which by the way is the most arrogant sounding name this side of golfer Charles Howell III and a name that should just be changed to “Gravy Trainer Off of My Wife.” Fielder-Civil, Winehouse and another person were arrested at a hotel in Bergen shortly after 6 p.m. Friday and held overnight. They were released the next morning around 7 a.m. after paying $715 in fines, which is, as any stoner will tell you, a small price to pay to be able to get high. Next time, schedule more tour stops in the Netherlands, Amy, they tend to look more kindly on druggies like yourself.

I love riots like Ron Burgundy loves Scotch, college football fund and Jack Bauer is a lush

- One of the many reasons I love riots, outside of the rampant property destruction, indiscriminate violence and clashes with authority figures, is that you can thoroughly enjoy them even if you have no real stake in the conflict itself. Take the protests in northern Iraq, where thousands of Kurds and their supporters took to the streets to take a stand against the Turkish Parliament’s decision to authorize the government to send Turkish troops across the border to root out Kurdish rebels who have been conducting attacks across the border into Turkey. It’s a tricky situation any time a border is involved and you’re going into another country to attack rebels who are crossing the border into your country. You can argue that a nation should not intrude on the border of its neighbor in this way for any reason or you could argue that if this is the best way the Turks can get after these militants, then they should do it. I prefer option #3, taking joy in the fact that thousands of average citizens banded together, took to the streets and took a stand against a government action they considered unfair and unjust. While I regret that no cars were set on fire or overturned and there were no violent clashes with police, I salute the spirit of rebellion wherever it lives, and so I salute the Kurds and their protest against the Turkish government, good work all of you.

- All good things must end, even for the Ol’ Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier. In his entire career, spanning stops at Duke, Florida and now South Carolina, the O.B.C. had never, ever lost a game to Vanderbilt – until yesterday. With his South Carolina Gamecocks ranked sixth in the most recent BCS poll (you still suck, BCS), Spurrier and his team welcomed Vandy to Columbia, S.C. and wound up on the wrong end of a 19-7 whuppin’. The loss throws South Carolina back into a mess of teams tied with two conference losses in the SEC East, but for all you O.B.C. haters out there, you just got plenty more ammo. Elsewhere in college football, a #1 team finally survived a week at the top of the heap, albeit with a late scare. Ohio State rushed out to an early 24-0 lead over Michigan State, then surrendered two late defensive touchdowns to MSU and a field goal that narrowed the gap to 24-17. Still, the Buckeyes survived and at this point, they’re doing a lot better than most teams who preceded them at the top of the polls this year. One of the teams chasing them and trying to overcome a loss, LSU, won in dramatic late-game fashion, beating a pesky Auburn team 30-24. The team that handed LSU its loss last week, Kentucky, saw its quarterback, Andre Woodson, throw for 415 yards and five touchdowns – and still lost at home to Florida 45-37. Also losing to end its national title hopes was California, which dropped a second straight game, 30-21 to a disappointing UCLA team that came from behind to down the Golden Bears. In-state rival USC had an easier time, handing Notre Dame its worst home loss ever, 38-0. It’s funny, back when I hated Notre Dame and rooted against them every week, they were great. Now, since I ran a marathon in South Bend that finished in Notre Dame Stadium and stopped hating the Irish after seeing their campus and feeling the great vibe on it firsthand, they totally suck and drop to 1-7. But back to the theme of teams losing for the second straight week after a long undefeated run to start the season….props to Cincinnati for showing why it’s still a long way from being a legit top program by dropping a 24-17 decision to a Pittsburgh Panthers team that had lost four in a row and had its coach, Dave Wannstedt, coaching from the press box instead of the sidelines after tearing an ACL this week and having surgery on it. A worse loss, though, was Nebraska and its 36-14 defeat to Texas A&M, a loss that came a week after the Cornhuskers’ worst-ever home loss and the same week that NU fired its athletic director, Steve Pedersen, and brought back NU legend Dr. Tom Osborne, the man who built the team into a national power, to be its new AD. Legend or not, it’s going to take a lot more than that to resuscitate a program that has fallen very far, very fast. Coach Beau Bridges, er, Bill Callahan, is set to be fired once the season ends and he clearly knows it. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Miami and Florida State did play this week, although with both teams unranked and uninteresting, the game that once was a bitterly heated rivalry that demanded the nation’s attention came and went with barely a whimper. The Hurricanes won by a 30-24 count, which should be yet another sign to FSU coach Bobby Bowden that it’s time for him to hang it up and give the program a chance to have a new voice and vision at the top. All in all, it was the most uneventful Saturday of college football in several weeks, which should mean that next weekend will be twice as tumultuous.

- Does Kiefer Sutherland need to be the next celeb to go to rehab several times, for varying lengths of time, before relapsing and going back again and again? If you believe reports that the diminutive star of 24 is a huge binge drinker, then the answer may be yes. Last month he got popped for a D.U.I., yet was spotted out on the town, ordering drinks two days later. Maybe he’s trying to chase away the fact that his show is dramatically behind its production schedule and that the new season has been thrown into chaos due to the repeated production delays. Or maybe his lush-like behavior and penchant for driving drunk are contributing to the show’s problems. Either way, it’s awfully hard for your star to make it to makeup in time and to learn his lines if you have to consistently bail him out of the drunk tank, so maybe try to keep it together for at least a few months, K., then you can go on one massive bender after the season wraps.

- Ah, bet you thought I was done with the social dissidence segment of this posting, but you would be wrong. I love all things riot and protest, so I had to send a shout-out to my peeps in Bolivia, a group of angry residents who stormed the country’s largest airport Thursday after the facility became a focal point of a battle between the federal government and the country’s largest province. About 220 air force troops and military police rushed to the Viru Viru (loose translation: Yes, your flight is delayed and no, you don’t get anything more to eat than a tiny bag containing five mini pretzels) Airport and fired tear gas at a group of rioters that included airport workers as they blocked an American Airlines plane on the runway and demanded that the company pay them landing fees in cash. Sure, people, the pilot will just break out the suitcase full of $100 bills he carries with him in the cockpit and peel off a few C-notes for you. Or maybe he can dip into the petty cash jar in the pilot’s break room to pay you. Regardless of the rightness of your claim, though, kudos for stepping in front of a plane weighing many, many tons and blocking it from moving at part of your demonstration. Also, bonus points for forcing the police to bust out the tear gas, that’s always a nice touch. Two major protests in a single day, I am a very happy person…….

- How very French of you, Nikolas Sarkozy. Following in a long line of Frenchmen (and women) who specialize in surrendering and waving the white flag, Sarkozy and wife Cecilia have filed for divorce. It’s the first divorce for a French president while in office, and if the history of his country is any indication, Sarkozy will accede to any demands his wife makes in the divorce settlement and will surrender all of his assets and possessions if she so much as threatens to raise her voice at him. Relax, Frenchies, I’m just tweaking you, I know you all are a smidge sensitive about being seen as a bunch of soft, wimpy surrender-ers.